Jamison Elementary
PHILADELPHIA – A federal lawsuit by a fired staff member furthers the mess at the Central Bucks School District, while its superintendent faces termination for how he handled allegations of abuse of autistic students at Jamison Elementary.
Alyssa Wright, the former head of special education in the district, sued Sept. 18 over her firing, which came after she filed a whistleblower complaint. She alleges her termination was done in retaliation and hired attorney Ari Karpf to represent her.
The complaint details the scandal at CBSD and calls it a “do-nothing entity and Board who watched serious problems unfold and continue as if they were in an audience in a reality TV show.”
It was Nov. 16 when an email was sent to CBSD management with an interview summary of a faculty member, Alyssa Klein, concerned about Jamison Elementary. It concerned fellow teachers Gabby McDaniel and Rachel Ausspring.
One student was allowed to sit naked in class, as well as masturbate, Klein reported. Teachers yelled at him, limited his water, did not clean up his spit and forced him to walk barefoot on wood chips in the playground, she added.
Punishments for bad behavior included restraining students to tables while a teacher made personal phone calls. The teacher also forced a student to sit on the toilet for 45 minutes as part of toilet-training and allowed one to cry so long that they vomited, she said.
But McDaniel and Aussprung were allowed to stay in their classroom during an investigation, with an April report by Disability Rights Pennsylvania noting a personal relationship between one of the teachers and the school’s principal.
Wright says she was not involved in this decision. Superintendent Steven Yanni made a report to Childline on Nov. 20 that resulted in a police investigation and, after three weeks, CBSD’s human resources department issued a memorandum announcing new policies and additional training.
Meanwhile, Wright says she routinely asked why the two teachers were still working while a criminal investigation was happening. Until March of this year, she complained that the teachers were not suspended and about the length of CBSD’s investigation.
In March, she submitted a 13-page complaint to the board naming several individuals, including Yanni. She says it was the catalyst for the school board to finally take action, but she was placed on administrative leave on May 2 and then fired in late August.
The reasons for why said she should have been aware of potential child abuse before it was reported by the third teacher and failed to report it, though Yanni did that in the days after the complaint by Klein, a personal care assistant, and again in January.
The report by Disability Rights Pennsylvania said all who saw the initial email from Klein should’ve reported it to Childline, though Wright says others weren’t disciplined. Yanni is defending himself in termination proceedings.
“All of the… individuals knew of abuse allegations directly or before Plaintiff was to learn about anything,” Wright’s suit says. “Unlike Plaintiff, several of them actually failed to intervene, take any action, or call Childline. Yet none of them were subjected to termination.”