Plum school chief placed on leave
Move comes amid sex scandal investigation
Two Plum school board members who pushed for the removal of district superintendent Timothy Glasspool got their way Friday, when he was put on involuntary paid leave during an independent investigation of a sexual abuse scandal at the high school.
“The action speaks for itself,” one of those board members, Steve Schlauch, said after the district announced the move. He described it as a positive and necessary step.
Mr. Glasspool is the second top administrator to be put on paid leave in May, following high school principal Ryan Kociela a week ago.
Both administrators were criticized in an 89-page grand jury report issued by the Allegheny County district attorney’s office, which spent nine months investigating how former teacher Joseph Ruggieri, described as a ”suspected serial child predator,” was able to operate with relative impunity over the years, striking up allegedly inappropriate relationships with numerous female students and ”grooming” them.
Ruggieri was sent to prison in a plea deal in April after pleading guilty to institutional sexual assault. The grand jury did not recommend any criminal charges, but it described institutional failures to properly investigate, document
and report allegations of inappropriate relationships.
Mr. Glasspool had been given a 48-hour ultimatum Tuesday night at a public board meeting at which he was berated by parents. The board told him to go on a voluntary leave or he would be placed on one. Mr. Glasspool stopped showing up to work Wednesday, and when he had not formally contacted any district official by Friday morning with his decision, board president Kevin Dowdell told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he was effectively on leave.
Mr. Glasspool declined comment.
After Mr. Kociela was put on leave, the district issued a statement that made no mention of Mr. Glasspool. Mr. Schlauch and fellow board member Vicky Roessler broke with their colleagues and issued their own statement Sunday
“...[T]he lack of leadership is very evident,” they wrote. “It is our opinion that the superintendent and principal could have been and should have been more proactive with making our schools a safer environment for our children and therefore should no longer hold positions of authority in the Plum Borough School District.”
Asked why the personnel moves were not done at the same time, Mr. Schlauch said, “Vicky and I had a difference of opinion compared to the rest of the board.”
Mr. Dowdell lamented the fact that the district has put its two top administrators on leave as the school year winds down.
“We would have preferred this report to be issued months ago or after school. The timing couldn’t be worse for this kind of thing. We wanted to be sure school ended smoothly. We were concerned it might have been too much disruption to the district,” Mr. Dowdell said.
In hiring Levin Legal Group of Huntingdon Valley to conduct an independent review, Mr. Dowdell said he hoped to combat the one-sided aspect of an investigating grand jury, which is driven by prosecutors.
“It was more or less onesided. So I’d like to hear what the outside counsel has to say, who looks at both sides of the story. A lot of people have said things in the report that are not totally accurate,” Mr. Dowdell said, adding that he believes there were ”inconsistencies” in the report.
“There was a lot of information that was left out,” Mr. Dowdell said of the report. “There’s always two sides to the story. This is more from the prosecutors’ side. We need to hear from the defendants, if you will, and see their side of the story. Out of the 7,500 pages of documents, there may be additional information that may indicate that things are done differently. I’m not saying the grand jury report was inaccurate. I’m saying it was maybe incomplete.”