Cheltenham superintendent Brian Scriven resigns after locker-room assaults lead to community outcry and charges
Scriven's resignation comes a week after prosectors charged four football coaches and six players in connection with the assaults and accused the district of mishandling its investigation.
Cheltenham Superintendent Brian Scriven resigned Thursday, a little more than a week after prosecutors charged four football coaches and six players in connection with assaults on a player in the high school locker room last year, and accused the school district of failing to adequately investigate the crimes.
“This year has tested our community in ways none of us anticipated,” Scriven said in a resignation letter released by the district. “I have come to believe that the district is best served by a fresh start under new leadership, and that stepping aside now is the right and necessary step to allow Cheltenham to move forward.”
The resignation is effectively immediately.
After canceling last year’s football season in October amid hazing allegations, the district announced in January that an investigation it commissioned had concluded that a “student-on-student” assault occurred on Sept. 3, witnessed by nearly 20 students.
The district failed to uncover that an earlier assault had occurred in August, Montgomery County prosecutors said. A grand jury report said district employees had wrongly taken the team’s head coach, Terence Tolbert, at his word that he didn’t instruct the 15-year-old player who was targeted not to tell his parents.
Scriven responded in a statement last week that “every report brought to the district’s attention was addressed based on the information available at the time.”
A 1988 Cheltenham High School graduate, Scriven was appointed superintendent of the Montgomery County district in fall of 2021.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
