Pa. has upheld Central Bucks' firing of a principal who failed to report abuse allegations
In a decision Tuesday, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Carrie Rowe found that Heineman's failure to report alleged abuse at Jamison Elementary constituted “willful neglect of his duties."
The Central Bucks School District was justified in firing the Jamison Elementary School principal who failed to report alleged abuse of students in an autistic support classroom, the state’s education secretary said.
In a decision Tuesday, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Carrie Rowe denied David Heineman’s appeal of his October firing, finding that Heineman’s failure to report abuse allegations to the state’s Child Protective Services hotline constituted “willful neglect of his duties.”
Heineman also failed to ensure that restraints of students were reported to the state, said Rowe, who also rejected Heineman’s assertion that he didn’t receive due process from the district.
A lawyer for Heineman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The decision is the latest in the fallout from the Jamison scandal, which became public in January 2025 after a school board member accused the district of covering up abuse of his son and other students in the autistic support classroom.
A whistleblower had complained to administrators two months earlier that students were being restrained, and that one student was left naked and denied water.
District officials said they investigated and didn’t find that abuse had occurred, and that law enforcement officials also didn’t find evidence of abuse.
But a disability rights watchdog group found in April 2025 that students had been illegally restrained, creating a “reasonable likelihood of bodily injury,” and that students observed or experienced neglect, aversive techniques, and nudity on a daily basis.
While then-Superintendent Steven Yanni had filed a report with ChildLine about the allegations, he “withheld relevant information,” according to the group, Disability Rights PA.
Yanni, who was fired by the district in October, has also appealed, though in court.
Heineman, who challenged his firing through the Department of Education’s tenure appeal process, said in his appeal that Yanni and other administrators had concluded there was no abuse, and that he was “deliberately kept out of communication” regarding more detailed allegations the whistleblower submitted to the district.
But Heineman had “full knowledge” of abuse allegations days earlier, and didn’t report them to authorities, Rowe said.
“Because every school employee has an independent obligation to report suspected abuse,” Heineman’s failure to report violated Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law, “despite a later report to ChildLine” by Yanni, Rowe said.
Rowe previously upheld the firing of former Central Bucks administrator Alyssa Wright on the same grounds.
In Heineman’s case, Rowe also found that the former principal had wrongly instructed employees to contact him before reporting suspected abuse to ChildLine.
And in March 2025, in the wake of the Jamison abuse allegations becoming public, Heineman failed to follow through in obtaining video footage after a student was injured on a school bus, Rowe said.
While a fellow administrator suggested that Heineman should review the footage to see whether a restraint occurred, he delayed in doing so, putting the district out of compliance with timelines for reporting restraints, according to Rowe. In that delay, Rowe said, Heineman again “willfully neglected his duties” as principal.
