Twenty staffers at a Pennsylvania charter school have been charged in connection with the physical abuse of more than two dozen children, some of them as young as 5 years old, prosecutors announced.
All 26 alleged victims, ranging from kindergarteners to fifth graders, were enrolled in a behavioral and emotional support program at Chester Community Charter School called the Team Approach to Achieving Academic Success. They were each allegedly subjected to painful punishments at the Philly-area school, including what the students called “shoulder work,” the office of Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in a statement
The tactic involved “pinching students on pressure points near their necks, placing them in holds with their arms crossed in front of them, and having a knee applied to their back until the student was brought to the ground.” The young victims were also allegedly physically restrained at times as a form punishment.
“This case is every parents’ nightmare,” Stollsteimer said.
“We send our children to school expecting the adults will keep them safe, not abuse them physically and emotionally,” he continued. “Our investigation showed some staffers physically abusing children while others sat passively and watched.”
An investigation into the matter was launched in January, after a 7-year-old boy told his parents he was afraid to go to school because his classmates were being physically restrained in a “positive support room” on campus, according to an affidavit obtained by NBC News. The next day, the relatives of another 7-year-old came forward with similar allegations regarding the mistreatment of their child.
Investigators went on to uncover roughly 100 incidents of alleged abuse, all of them caught on security cameras, the district attorney’s office said.
Of the 20 people charged, nine have been accused of abusing students. They are facing counts of conspiracy, simple assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a child and failure to report endangering the welfare of a child, the DA’s office said. The other 11 have been charged with failure to report the alleged endangerment, and three of them have been placed on leave pending further investigation.
Police said the latter group includes a “dean of students” as well as “teachers.”
The suspects also include 17 contractors from a Chester-based third-party company called Peak Performers Staffing, according to school spokesperson Max Tribble. The school terminated its contract with the company after learning its contractors were using “disciplinary methods which are strictly prohibited by the school,” he told the Philly Voice.
“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.”
