There are several interim administrators at Central Bucks School District where at least five top officials have left, been put on leave, or terminated in the past year.
Cathy Rossi, the former personnel director at Wissahickon School District, is now interim human resources director at Central Bucks, a spokesperson confirmed on Friday. Rossi had been hired as an HR consultant in March in the wake of the Jamison Elementary child abuse allegations, after district personnel expressed concern about retaliation after the investigation.
Central Bucks HR director replaced
Rossi took on additional HR tasks a few weeks later, as HR Director Robert Freiling was put on leave. It is unclear whether Freiling has since left the district, was terminated, or is still on leave.
The school board moved to terminate five district staff and administrators in June, including the head of special education and the teacher and aide accused of misconduct at Jamison, but this news organization has been unable to confirm the identities of the other two staffers.
Freiling joined the school district last year, having led human resources for a food services department and a chapter of the Teamsters Union. He received the original written Jamison whistleblower complaint and led the district’s internal probe of the Jamison allegations, according to a report by Disability Rights Pennsylvania, a federal monitor for people with disabilities that investigated at Central Bucks.
Freiling and an HR manager for the support staff, Christine Trawinski, conducted interviews with staff related to the Jamison allegations, according to DRP’s report. The interviews corroborated several of the concerns raised in the initial whistleblower complaint, DRP investigators wrote, including restraints, nudity, and neglect. But Freiling had told Jim Pepper, a school board director and the parent of one of the children allegedly abused in the Jamison classroom, that the district’s investigation had found “no evidence of abuse.”
Freiling told DRP that his internal investigation was not intended to determine whether abuse occurred, because that is the role of state authorities.
Freiling and Nadine Garvin, an assistant superintendent, were the two highest-ranking administrators present at the meeting where district officials decided not to put the accused teacher out on leave pending investigation, according to the DRP report. Garvin has since retired early.
The teacher has denied wrongdoing through a spokesperson. After her termination, the teacher said through her attorney that the district itself had found the allegations unsubstantiated and that she plans to file a grievance.
More: Central Bucks students abused in Jamison special ed class; admins misled police: report
Interim CFO, principal, superintendent step in amid leaves, departures
David Matyas, a longtime Central Bucks business administrator who left for the Downington school district in 2019, has returned to Central Bucks as the interim CFO, a district spokesperson confirmed on Friday. The district’s previous CFO, Tara Houser, took over as CFO of North Penn School District, a move first announced in January.
The former principal at Jamison Elementary, Dave Heineman, will not be returning as principal for the start of the school year, according to an update on Central Bucks’s website. “Mrs. Lauren Dowd will continue serving as interim principal of Jamison Elementary School as leadership plans are finalized for the school,” the district wrote.
Heineman was put on leave earlier this year in the wake of the Jamison allegations. It’s unclear whether he has left, or was among the staff that the board moved to terminate last month, or is still on leave.
Charles Malone, an assistant superintendent at Central Bucks, remains substitute superintendent at the district. It’s unclear whether Superintendent Steven Yanni, who was put on leave this spring immediately after the DRP report was published, was among those the district moved to terminate last month.
Jess Rohan can be reached at jrohan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Who’s in charge at Central Bucks amid departures of top administrators