Child Abuse Scandal Rocks Pennsylvania Charter School: 20 Staff Charged

Send us a text

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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, this is a wild story, man.
I don't know if y'all heardabout this yet, but this is
coming out of Delaware County,chester.
Pennsylvania.
Officials have charged 20people for either physically
abusing or failing to report theabuse of 26 children at a
Pennsylvania charter schoolcalled Chester Community Charter

(00:22):
School.
Called Chester CommunityCharter School, the
investigation began back inJanuary of 2025 when parents
reported that their childrenwere afraid to attend the school
due to fear of being placed inquote-unquote holes by staff
members.
The investigation found thatnine workers restrained and
punished the students by usingtechniques like pinching them on

(00:42):
their pressure points neartheir necks and holding them in
restraints, as well asthreatening them with quote
unquote shoulder work.
Much of the abuse was capturedon surveillance video.
Several of the accused were notemployees of the school, but
rather worked for a third partycompany called Peak Performance
Staffing LLC, former staffingLLC.

(01:07):
The school's principal statedthat any quote-unquote safety
hole use had to be reported, butno such holes were reported in
2024, which means they went awhole year without reporting
anybody being, you know,restrained for one reason or the
next.
This is when the alleged abusetook place back in 2024.
The 20 suspects included ninepeople and charged them with
multiple counts of conspiracy,assault, unlawful restraint,

(01:29):
false imprisonment and failureto report, as well as 11 people
charged with failure to reportthe 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 thefact that you know they're going
to have to well, I'm prettysure their charter is probably

(01:50):
screwed at this point, butthey're going to have to.
If they do happen to, you know,keep the charter.
You're going to have to prettymuch restaff the entire school.
Now I did some, you know, duediligence on the school and, um,
looking at the website, itdidn't seem like, you know,
nothing of the sort would happenthere.
I mean, these guys were gettinglike scholarships from saquon

(02:12):
barclay, all type of stuff, likethey seemed like it was up and
up.
But I guess because they hiredthis third party company, which
a lot of schools do that now,you know, after covid with the
teacher shortage, and a lot ofteachers do that now, you know,
after COVID with the teachershortage and a lot of teachers
quitting, retiring or whateverthey're doing, they will get
these third parties that come inand basically they're like

(02:32):
substitutes so you can use themto cover multiple classes in a
day, work with special needsstudents, things of that nature.
The problem is, they said, withthe peak performance staffing
is that the staff members werenot trained in restraining
anybody, which you have to be.
That's almost like statemandated, that you know.

(02:54):
If you're going to doillywherever, you can correct me if
I'm wrong on how it works If youwork in a school or you know
somebody that do work in aschool.
But most of the time that'sthat training is provided by the

(03:16):
district and I know fromexperience that you know in
dealing with third party staffand companies that you know we
wouldn't provide that for you.
So I don't know exactly howthat works.
You know in terms of them beingbecause they're not technically
district employees, so theywouldn't be privy to some of the

(03:38):
professional developments thatother teachers and staff members
might receive.
So, like I said, this schoolseemed like it was pretty much
on the up and up.
They had several events, itseemed like the kids were
engaged in what was going on inthe school and it's unfortunate
that something like thishappened and especially that it
hasn't been reported in over ayear, which is crazy, because

(04:00):
anytime a child is put in arestraint, that has to be
documented in the district'ssystem to let you know that this
is what happened with thischild.
So having it now, where thekids even are coming up to their
parents and saying, well, I wasafraid to go to school, I
wonder.
You know, it makes me wonder,like, did this fall on deaf ears

(04:21):
for a long time?
Me wonder that this fall ondeaf ears for a long time.
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 thatmost charter schools would have.
And then when I go over to thePeak Performers staffing website

(04:44):
which, if you wouldn't believethat they would keep it up, you
were absolutely right becausethey took that thing down like
immediately, so you don't evensee it on it.
It won't allow you to get onthe staffing agency website.
The sad part about this is,again, is that the children

(05:06):
suffer on this one and thestaffing, of course, is shot.
So they're going to have tokind of make up for that.
And on top of that we got apress conference today from the
Delaware County DA who actuallyspoke about this, I should say,
and the charges that's comingdown the pike for these guys.
So this is a district attorney,jack Stolermeier, who held a

(05:27):
press conference this afternoonin regards to what was going on
with the school.
So check this out.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
The district attorney of Delaware County.
We are here today.
Check this out, the districtattorney of Delaware County.
We're here today.
As you all know, we chargedearlier today 20 individuals who
worked at the Chester CommunityCharter School with child abuse
.
Nine of the individualsactually, according to the

(06:00):
surveillance videos we'vereviewed, actually laid their
hands on children and abuse themphysically.
Eleven other individuals, whoare sort of different roles in
the school, turned their backsand looked the other way or in
fact oftentimes looked right atthe abuse happening and failed
to report it.
So they are charged withfailure to report.
These are all of theseemployees.
All 20 people have a duty underPennsylvania law to report
instances of child abuse.
They are mandated to reportthat by law.
So by not reporting it theyviolated the law.

(06:23):
We've also charged those 11individuals who witnessed this
without doing anything, withendangering the welfare of those
children.
But there are nine individualswho we have surveillance videos
that I've watched of themputting their hands on these
children, some as young as five.
It's their K to five yearsgrades and these are children

(06:43):
who are in the emotional supportprogram and so in the
surveillance videos you can seethem doing pressure point holds
on the child's shoulder, causingthem pain.
You can see them grabbing theirhands and putting them in front
of them to restrain them.
Oftentimes you can see themthen using their knee to take
the child to the ground and atleast once in incidents I saw
them jack a kid up against thewall.

(07:05):
This is just unacceptablebehavior to happen anywhere,
particularly in a school settingfor children who are supposed
to be getting emotional support.
So we are thankful that theChester Township Police, as soon
as this came to light, officerStrofe and Detective Mullen,
working with our office, myDeputy District Attorney Kristen

(07:26):
Kemp, have investigated thismatter.
It's still an ongoinginvestigation, but we've charged
these individuals and we'removing forward, and I assume you
all might have some questions.
Can you talk about the emotionalsupport program first of all,
so we understand that these kidsare supposed to be getting help
with their emotions and they'regetting attacked in the
classroom, exactly right?
I mean, my understanding isthese are children who it's been

(07:48):
identified that they need morehelp at that age a very tender
age, k-5 grades we're talkingabout here and so these people
are supposed to be giving themextra support as they're trying
to learn in school and insteadoftentimes they're just either
intimidating them physically andthen laying hands on them.
It's very disturbing to see thesurveillance videos.

(08:09):
Jack, can you tell us therelationship between the
contractor and the school andwho was involved there, and are
they just as culpable as theschool and vice versa?
My understanding and again,this is a continuing
investigation is that most ofthese, if not all of these
employees I don't think all ofthem, but most of them were

(08:31):
contracted through thisorganization, peak Performance,
thank you.
They're supposed to be keepingrecords, they're supposed to be
training and they've told theschool that they were doing all
of that.
The law enforcementinvestigation is finding that to
not be true, that they haven'ttrained these people in the
proper way to restrain a child.

(08:51):
If you have to restrain a childand the school is under an
obligation I think you see it inthe complaint that if a child
is restrained at any time, thathas to be reported by the state.
So I think there are someissues here for both the school
and certainly for this companythat was providing some of these
employees, because the schoolwasn't looking at their own

(09:12):
surveillance video.
Jack, the affidavit describesthis as systemic.
It wasn't sporadic, it wasn'tincidental.
This was something that wasknown about that people ignored
or participated in.
Is your office investigatingthe rest of that school just to
make sure that this isn't takingplace anywhere else?
Yeah, great question.
So we are.
As I've mentioned, alex, it's acontinuing investigation.

(09:34):
If you see from the complaint,most of the incidents that we've
charged happened betweenNovember and December of last
year.
We're still looking at video,so there will be more work being
done by these great officersfrom Chester Township who picked
up the cudgel when we first gotcomplaints in the door.
They have been investigatingthis nonstop, but Chief Colson,

(09:55):
who I spoke to this morning, isabsolutely committed to
continuing the investigation andif there are more charges
warranted, you know we're goingto bring them, do you?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
think that there are more victims out there and if so
what's your message to theseparents?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
I can't tell you how many more people I mean 26
children have been identified aspeople who are victims already.
We also know that some peoplehave some young people witness
these things happening and maynot have been identified as
people who are victims already.
We also know that some youngpeople witnessed these things
happening and may not have beenactually victimized themselves.
That's another form ofvictimization.
I think again to Alex's point.
This is a systemic problem inthis school where these kids in
this program were living in feara lot of them.

(10:33):
So if there are more victims,we would love for their parents
to come forward.
It probably took a lot ofcourage for these young children
to tell their parents what washappening in school and why they
were afraid to go back toschool.
But as we're interviewing thesechildren, we're getting the
stories and if there are morepeople and more children who
want to come forward, we arehere for them, as are the

(10:53):
Chester Township Police.
Have the victims' families seenthese videos?
And you're just thought as ahuman being watching these?
Yeah, I don't think thatthey've seen the videos.
As a parent, I'm reallydisturbed to think that when you
send your child to school.
That somebody who is being paidto take care of your child is

(11:15):
actually hurting them is justfrightening.
Just as a human being, it'sawful to watch these grown
people the way they're treatingthese young kids, and you can
just imagine what this is goingto be like for those children
going forward.
This is just not the way we'resupposed to treat young people,
particularly in a school setting.
It's been a complete failureand I'm outraged by it.

(11:38):
In a school setting, it's beena complete failure and I'm
outraged by it.
You know, talking again toChief Colson this morning, you
know he hasn't seen anythinglike this either for a long time
in his career, and so that'swhy we want to make sure that we
brought the charges as quicklyas possible, but also to
continue the investigation tomake sure that we've stopped it.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
All right.
So I'm going to stop it rightthere, because it is a pretty
long press conference and, asthe DA said, you know this
behavior was out of controlapparently for some time now and
you only have the 26 victimsthat were identified, but not
not counting anybody whowitnessed it and as well as if

(12:20):
there were any more victims ofit.
Um, listen, I know likenational net, uh, oh my gosh,
I'm bugging out but nationwidethat 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, inreading some of the comments

(12:42):
here, one particularly stood outto me.
This was from a person thatcommented on YouTube here and it
states that the person was, youknow, allegedly I don't know,
because this is YouTube I wasone.
I was a one-on-one for a childat this school over a decade ago
and it said those kids were outof control.

(13:04):
The teacher would tell theparents to come and look at
their kids on camera acting up,and they wouldn't come.
I can only imagine how bad theyare now Not saying it's right,
but them kids probably asked forit.
Now, this is just a statementfrom one person that was there
Also another person here whostated we were saying this like
20 years ago.
This has to been, this has beengoing on for some time, I

(13:27):
reckon.
So, um, you know, I I go backto that first statement that was
made and it's like thesentiment 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 tothese people using this extreme
form of discipline to, you know, to handle these kids during

(13:51):
the course of a day.
And again, it's not to excuse,you know the situation, you know
, but just wanted to get yourthoughts on that as well.
Situation, you know, but justwanted to get your thoughts on
that as well.
Also, a statement was releasedon the school's website from Dr
David E Clark Jr and he is theCEO of Chester Community Charter

(14:16):
School and it reads in part itsays Dear CCCS families, thank
you for contributing and I'msorry I'm reading this like this
, because the print on themessage is so small that you got
to, you know.
So bear with me.
Thank you for continuing totrust us with the education of
your students.

(14:36):
It is our greatest honor toserve them.
I am writing today with animportant update about a
situation at our school.
Cccs has recently learned thatseveral individuals employees of
a certified outside contractorformerly associated with the
school are being charged bylocal authorities for using

(14:58):
disciplinary methods which areprohibited by the school.
The contractor is peakperformers.
As soon as schooladministrators learned that
there was a possibility, apossible violation of approved
methods, we took swift anddecisive action to terminate the
contractor.
Cccs employees who are allegedto have carried out such

(15:23):
practices were also promptlyterminated at the same time.
At that time I'm sorry Again,the print is very little at that
time and any employee who mighthave had knowledge of the
situation replaced on leavepending further investigation.
Cccs has been completelycooperative with local

(15:46):
authorities.
We also recently learned thatour three employees that there
are that, I'm sorry.
Let me go back again, againsmall print.
We also recently learned thatthree employees are being
charged as part of thisinvestigation for failing to
report alleged misconduct, andthey have been suspended.
It is important to note that thefamilies of all directly

(16:10):
affected students are promptlynotified as soon as the school
became aware of the allegations,and these families have also
chosen to keep their studentsenrolled at CCCS because of the
school's deep commitment totheir education and well-being.
No student is at risk and ourentire CCCS community is

(16:34):
committed to ensuring only thebest practices to maintain a
positive climate.
Practices to maintain apositive climate, let's see.
The health and safety of ourstudents is always our top
priority and that is why weacted quickly to ensure that
students would not be furthersubjected to any unauthorized
disciplinary methods.

(16:54):
It's also important to knowthat CCCS requires that every
employee who has direct contactwith children complete mandate
report training mandate,reporter training.
Cccs will continue to cooperatewith any inquiry by local
authorities, and this issincerely from Dr David E Clark

(17:16):
Jr, the CEO of Chester CommunityCharter School.
So again, you know unfortunatesituation and you know to all
parties involved in it.
It's a horrible thing, you know, to have your children, you
know, improperly restrained ordisciplined through pain or

(17:37):
anything like that at school,especially in the charter school
, because you know, let's bereal, you're paying for it.
So it's like you don't want tosend your kids there to get
abused, or should it take placein any school.
But I wanted to just get youropinions on it out there, folks.
So please drop something in thecomments to let us know what
you think about this particularsituation.

(17:59):
Do you have questions about,maybe, the behavioral patterns
of the school, that maybe theydid have some students that were
out of control, the methodsthat were used?
Do you agree with third-partyyou know educators, like do you
agree with actually having athird party come in and you know
act as you know,disciplinarians to your students

(18:20):
there and they're not districtemployees or, you know, not held
under the same standards as adistrict employee in terms of
the proper training and all?
So let me know what you thinkin the comments and also please
hit the button to like andsubscribe to keep up with all of
the content that we put out.

(18:41):
This is Carl Gerard One MicPodcast.
Peace.