Central Bucks moved to fire special education teacher accused of abusing students
Teacher Gabrielle McDaniel, who said she's being fired, taught in the autistic support classroom at Jamison Elementary where a whistleblower reported students were mistreated.
The Central Bucks school board took action Wednesday against five employees, including moving to fire a special education teacher accused of abusing students at Jamison Elementary School.
The board’s public agenda for Wednesday’s meeting didn’t name the employees or state what disciplinary action it was taking, but the teacher, Gabrielle McDaniel, said she was being fired.
“I am deeply disappointed by the District’s decision to terminate my employment based on allegations that have been thoroughly investigated and found to be unsubstantiated by the District itself and several agencies,” McDaniel said in a statement released ahead of the meeting by the Cozen O’Connor law firm.
The board’s president, Susan Gibson, said Wednesday’s votes were “significant actions that impact the operations of this district at nearly every level.”
Because employees have due process rights, “we will have no further comment on these actions, nor can we release any documents laying out the legal advice that led us to here,” Gibson said.
McDaniel taught in the autistic support classroom at Jamison Elementary where a whistleblower reported last fall that students were being improperly restrained, physically punished and denied water, with one student allowed to be naked for extended periods.
The allegations became public in January, after a school board member, Jim Pepper, said his son was among the abused children.
District officials said they had investigated and didn’t find any abuse had occurred. The Bucks County district attorney and Warwick police, meanwhile, declined to prosecute.
But a report from Disability Rights Pennsylvania said the allegations were corroborated by multiple staff members. The nonprofit protection and advocacy group said the four students in the classroom had experienced illegal restraints, neglect, and “demeaning treatment on a daily basis.”
It also said the teacher and educational assistant in the classroom had created “a likelihood of sexual abuse or exploitation” of one student by allowing and encouraging him to masturbate.
In the wake of the report — which criticized the district’s investigation and accused officials of misleading the public and law enforcement — the school board placed Superintendent Steven Yanni on leave, along with other administrators.
Among them was Alyssa Wright, the district’s director of pupil services. While Wright, like other employees, wasn’t named on Wednesday’s agenda, Pepper urged fellow board members to vote against her termination.
The report the district filed with ChildLine, the state’s child protective services hotline, about the whistleblower’s allegations was “materially false and I believe criminal,” said Pepper, a lawyer. While Yanni, Assistant Superintendent Nadine Garvin, and Human Resources Director Robert Freiling signed the ChildLine report, Pepper said, Wright — who was in the room with them — did not. (Garvin resigned earlier this month, while Freiling’s resignation was approved Wednesday.)
“She did not know what was going on in that classroom,” said Pepper, who abstained from four of the five votes Wednesday approving statements of charges against employees, but voted against one. “Yet she is now thrown out, despite doing a very good job.”
In its report, Disability Rights recommended that the teacher and educational assistant in the Jamison classroom be disciplined “for their abuse, neglect, and violations of the rights of students.”
McDaniel said in her statement that “false claims” about her had been “repeated and perpetuated.”
“The truth matters, and I will utilize the appropriate channels to grieve this decision,” said McDaniel, who said she had a “strong and unblemished record” as an educator, including during the past two years at Jamison Elementary. One man who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting, Tim Froman, said McDaniel was “being railroaded.”
The school board has drawn pushback for its response to the allegations. Pepper, the lone Republican on the board, has said the board majority was divided on taking action against Yanni and others sooner.
“Not everybody on this board cares about the children in our schools,” Pepper said Wednesday. “The only word that comes to mind is putrid politics.”
While the board in February commissioned an outside investigation of the allegations, it hasn’t issued any public findings. Wednesday’s agenda didn’t include any report from the lawyer it hired, Leigh Dalton. A district spokesperson did not respond to a question Wednesday about the report’s status.
Gibson, speaking at the start of Wednesday’s meeting, said it was time to “admit to the public and more importantly, Mr. Pepper ... that this district has let these students, your children, down.”
“We will do everything in our power to ensure this never happens again,” Gibson said. She said the district would use the summer “to develop meaningful policy reforms and a comprehensive training plan for our staff” to be in place for the coming school year.
Michael Henry, a parent of one of the students in the Jamison classroom, told the board that while Wednesday’s meeting “finally reflects the acknowledgement of what happened,” he had unanswered questions, including what Dalton’s report had found, and what specific changes the district would be making.
“I had no idea what was happening to my kid. People were lying to me for a long time,” Henry said. Of Gibson’s comments, he said, “Please let those statements be true.”