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Child Abuse Scandal Rocks Pennsylvania Charter School: 20 Staff Charged
A shocking case of institutional child abuse has emerged from Chester Community Charter School in Pennsylvania, where 20 school workers now face serious charges related to the physical abuse of 26 children. What began as troubling reports from parents whose children feared going to school has unfolded into a disturbing scandal involving unauthorized restraint techniques, painful "pressure point" holds, and a systemic failure to protect the most vulnerable students.
All right, this is a wild story, man. I don't know if y'all heard about this yet, but this is coming out of Delaware County, chester. Pennsylvania. Officials have charged 20 people for either physically abusing or failing to report the abuse of 26 children at a Pennsylvania charter school called Chester Community Charter School. Called Chester Community Charter School, the investigation began back in January of 2025 when parents reported that their children were afraid to attend the school due to fear of being placed in quote-unquote holes by staff members. The investigation found that nine workers restrained and punished the students by using techniques like pinching them on their pressure points near their necks and holding them in restraints, as well as threatening them with quote unquote shoulder work. Much of the abuse was captured on surveillance video. Several of the accused were not employees of the school, but rather worked for a third party company called Peak Performance Staffing LLC, former staffing LLC. The school's principal stated that any quote-unquote safety hole use had to be reported, but no such holes were reported in 2024, which means they went a whole year without reporting anybody being, you know, restrained for one reason or the next. This is when the alleged abuse took place back in 2024. The 20 suspects included nine people and charged them with multiple counts of conspiracy, assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment and failure to report, as well as 11 people charged with failure to report the endangering of the welfare of a child. So this is darn near your whole, just about a good percentage of your staff, you know. So what throws this off is the fact that you know they're going to have to well, I'm pretty sure their charter is probably screwed at this point, but they're going to have to. If they do happen to, you know, keep the charter. You're going to have to pretty much restaff the entire school.
Speaker 1:Now I did some, you know, due diligence on the school and, um, looking at the website, it didn't seem like, you know, nothing of the sort would happen there. I mean, these guys were getting like scholarships from saquon barclay, all type of stuff, like they seemed like it was up and up. But I guess because they hired this third party company, which a lot of schools do that now, you know, after covid with the teacher shortage, and a lot of teachers do that now, you know, after COVID with the teacher shortage and a lot of teachers quitting, retiring or whatever they're doing, they will get these third parties that come in and basically they're like substitutes so you can use them to cover multiple classes in a day, work with special needs students, things of that nature. The problem is, they said, with the peak performance staffing is that the staff members were not trained in restraining anybody, which you have to be. That's almost like state mandated, that you know. If you're going to doilly wherever, you can correct me if I'm wrong on how it works If you work in a school or you know somebody that do work in a school. But most of the time that's that training is provided by the district and I know from experience that you know in dealing with third party staff and companies that you know we wouldn't provide that for you. So I don't know exactly how that works. You know in terms of them being because they're not technically district employees, so they wouldn't be privy to some of the professional developments that other teachers and staff members might receive.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, this school seemed like it was pretty much on the up and up. They had several events, it seemed like the kids were engaged in what was going on in the school and it's unfortunate that something like this happened and especially that it hasn't been reported in over a year, which is crazy, because anytime a child is put in a restraint, that has to be documented in the district's system to let you know that this is what happened with this child. So having it now, where the kids even are coming up to their parents and saying, well, I was afraid to go to school, I wonder. You know, it makes me wonder, like, did this fall on deaf ears for a long time? Me wonder that this fall on deaf ears for a long time.
Speaker 1:So again, when we look at this, and with this particular charter school, they, like I said, saquon Barkley and you know, came to the school. They have everything here that most charter schools would have. And then when I go over to the Peak Performers staffing website which, if you wouldn't believe that they would keep it up, you were absolutely right because they took that thing down like immediately, so you don't even see it on it. It won't allow you to get on the staffing agency website. The sad part about this is, again, is that the children suffer on this one and the staffing, of course, is shot. So they're going to have to kind of make up for that. And on top of that we got a press conference today from the Delaware County DA who actually spoke about this, I should say, and the charges that's coming down the pike for these guys. So this is a district attorney, jack Stolermeier, who held a press conference this afternoon in regards to what was going on with the school. So check this out.
Speaker 2:The district attorney of Delaware County. We are here today. Check this out, the district attorney of Delaware County. We're here today. As you all know, we charged earlier today 20 individuals who worked at the Chester Community Charter School with child abuse. Nine of the individuals actually, according to the surveillance videos we've reviewed, actually laid their hands on children and abuse them physically. Eleven other individuals, who are sort of different roles in the school, turned their backs and looked the other way or in fact oftentimes looked right at the abuse happening and failed to report it. So they are charged with failure to report. These are all of these employees. All 20 people have a duty under Pennsylvania law to report instances of child abuse. They are mandated to report that by law. So by not reporting it they violated the law.
Speaker 2:We've also charged those 11 individuals who witnessed this without doing anything, with endangering the welfare of those children. But there are nine individuals who we have surveillance videos that I've watched of them putting their hands on these children, some as young as five. It's their K to five years grades and these are children who are in the emotional support program and so in the surveillance videos you can see them doing pressure point holds on the child's shoulder, causing them pain. You can see them grabbing their hands and putting them in front of them to restrain them. Oftentimes you can see them then using their knee to take the child to the ground and at least once in incidents I saw them jack a kid up against the wall. This is just unacceptable behavior to happen anywhere, particularly in a school setting for children who are supposed to be getting emotional support. So we are thankful that the Chester Township Police, as soon as this came to light, officer Strofe and Detective Mullen, working with our office, my Deputy District Attorney Kristen Kemp, have investigated this matter. It's still an ongoing investigation, but we've charged these individuals and we're moving forward, and I assume you all might have some questions.
Speaker 2:Can you talk about the emotional support program first of all, so we understand that these kids are supposed to be getting help with their emotions and they're getting attacked in the classroom, exactly right? I mean, my understanding is these are children who it's been identified that they need more help at that age a very tender age, k-5 grades we're talking about here and so these people are supposed to be giving them extra support as they're trying to learn in school and instead oftentimes they're just either intimidating them physically and then laying hands on them. It's very disturbing to see the surveillance videos. Jack, can you tell us the relationship between the contractor and the school and who was involved there, and are they just as culpable as the school and vice versa? My understanding and again, this is a continuing investigation is that most of these, if not all of these employees I don't think all of them, but most of them were contracted through this organization, peak Performance, thank you. They're supposed to be keeping records, they're supposed to be training and they've told the school that they were doing all of that. The law enforcement investigation is finding that to not be true, that they haven't trained these people in the proper way to restrain a child. If you have to restrain a child and the school is under an obligation I think you see it in the complaint that if a child is restrained at any time, that has to be reported by the state. So I think there are some issues here for both the school and certainly for this company that was providing some of these employees, because the school wasn't looking at their own surveillance video.
Speaker 2:Jack, the affidavit describes this as systemic. It wasn't sporadic, it wasn't incidental. This was something that was known about that people ignored or participated in. Is your office investigating the rest of that school just to make sure that this isn't taking place anywhere else? Yeah, great question. So we are. As I've mentioned, alex, it's a continuing investigation. If you see from the complaint, most of the incidents that we've charged happened between November and December of last year. We're still looking at video, so there will be more work being done by these great officers from Chester Township who picked up the cudgel when we first got complaints in the door. They have been investigating this nonstop, but Chief Colson, who I spoke to this morning, is absolutely committed to continuing the investigation and if there are more charges warranted, you know we're going to bring them, do you?
Speaker 1:think that there are more victims out there and if so what's your message to these parents?
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how many more people I mean 26 children have been identified as people who are victims already. We also know that some people have some young people witness these things happening and may not have been identified as people who are victims already. We also know that some young people witnessed these things happening and may not have been actually victimized themselves. That's another form of victimization. I think again to Alex's point. This is a systemic problem in this school where these kids in this program were living in fear a lot of them. So if there are more victims, we would love for their parents to come forward. It probably took a lot of courage for these young children to tell their parents what was happening in school and why they were afraid to go back to school. But as we're interviewing these children, we're getting the stories and if there are more people and more children who want to come forward, we are here for them, as are the Chester Township Police.
Speaker 2:Have the victims' families seen these videos? And you're just thought as a human being watching these? Yeah, I don't think that they've seen the videos. As a parent, I'm really disturbed to think that when you send your child to school. That somebody who is being paid to take care of your child is actually hurting them is just frightening. Just as a human being, it's awful to watch these grown people the way they're treating these young kids, and you can just imagine what this is going to be like for those children going forward. This is just not the way we're supposed to treat young people, particularly in a school setting. It's been a complete failure and I'm outraged by it. In a school setting, it's been a complete failure and I'm outraged by it. You know, talking again to Chief Colson this morning, you know he hasn't seen anything like this either for a long time in his career, and so that's why we want to make sure that we brought the charges as quickly as possible, but also to continue the investigation to make sure that we've stopped it.
Speaker 1:All right. So I'm going to stop it right there, because it is a pretty long press conference and, as the DA said, you know this behavior was out of control apparently for some time now and you only have the 26 victims that were identified, but not not counting anybody who witnessed it and as well as if there were any more victims of it. Um, listen, I know like national net, uh, oh my gosh, I'm bugging out but nationwide that there has been a problem with, uh, student behavior, um, not to excuse the you know abuse of these children. Um, and I say that because, in reading some of the comments here, one particularly stood out to me. This was from a person that commented on YouTube here and it states that the person was, you know, allegedly I don't know, because this is YouTube I was one.
Speaker 1:I was a one-on-one for a child at this school over a decade ago and it said those kids were out of control. The teacher would tell the parents to come and look at their kids on camera acting up, and they wouldn't come. I can only imagine how bad they are now Not saying it's right, but them kids probably asked for it. Now, this is just a statement from one person that was there Also another person here who stated we were saying this like 20 years ago. This has to been, this has been going on for some time, I reckon. So, um, you know, I I go back to that first statement that was made and it's like the sentiment of a lot of people, and I mean just to say, again, not to excuse behavior, but a lot of people would say, well, what led up to this? I mean, you know what led up to these people using this extreme form of discipline to, you know, to handle these kids during the course of a day. And again, it's not to excuse, you know the situation, you know, but just wanted to get your thoughts on that as well. Situation, you know, but just wanted to get your thoughts on that as well. Also, a statement was released on the school's website from Dr David E Clark Jr and he is the CEO of Chester Community Charter School and it reads in part it says Dear CCCS families, thank you for contributing and I'm sorry I'm reading this like this, because the print on the message is so small that you got to, you know. So bear with me. Thank you for continuing to trust us with the education of your students. It is our greatest honor to serve them.
Speaker 1:I am writing today with an important update about a situation at our school. Cccs has recently learned that several individuals employees of a certified outside contractor formerly associated with the school are being charged by local authorities for using disciplinary methods which are prohibited by the school. The contractor is peak performers. As soon as school administrators learned that there was a possibility, a possible violation of approved methods, we took swift and decisive action to terminate the contractor. Cccs employees who are alleged to have carried out such practices were also promptly terminated at the same time. At that time I'm sorry Again, the print is very little at that time and any employee who might have had knowledge of the situation replaced on leave pending further investigation. Cccs has been completely cooperative with local authorities. We also recently learned that our three employees that there are that, I'm sorry. Let me go back again, again small print. We also recently learned that three employees are being charged as part of this investigation for failing to report alleged misconduct, and they have been suspended.
Speaker 1:It is important to note that the families of all directly affected students are promptly notified as soon as the school became aware of the allegations, and these families have also chosen to keep their students enrolled at CCCS because of the school's deep commitment to their education and well-being. No student is at risk and our entire CCCS community is committed to ensuring only the best practices to maintain a positive climate. Practices to maintain a positive climate, let's see. The health and safety of our students is always our top priority and that is why we acted quickly to ensure that students would not be further subjected to any unauthorized disciplinary methods. It's also important to know that CCCS requires that every employee who has direct contact with children complete mandate report training mandate, reporter training. Cccs will continue to cooperate with any inquiry by local authorities, and this is sincerely from Dr David E Clark Jr, the CEO of Chester Community Charter School.
Speaker 1:So again, you know unfortunate situation and you know to all parties involved in it. It's a horrible thing, you know, to have your children, you know, improperly restrained or disciplined through pain or anything like that at school, especially in the charter school, because you know, let's be real, you're paying for it. So it's like you don't want to send your kids there to get abused, or should it take place in any school. But I wanted to just get your opinions on it out there, folks. So please drop something in the comments to let us know what you think about this particular situation.
Speaker 1:Do you have questions about, maybe, the behavioral patterns of the school, that maybe they did have some students that were out of control, the methods that were used? Do you agree with third-party you know educators, like do you agree with actually having a third party come in and you know act as you know, disciplinarians to your students there and they're not district employees or, you know, not held under the same standards as a district employee in terms of the proper training and all? So let me know what you think in the comments and also please hit the button to like and subscribe to keep up with all of the content that we put out. This is Carl Gerard One Mic Podcast. Peace.