Central Bucks puts HR director, manager on leave amid special education abuse investigation
District officials put Robert Freiling and Christine Trawinski on leave, after placing Superintendent Steven Yanni on leave in the wake of special education abuse findings at Jamison Elementary.
Central Bucks school officials on Wednesday said they had placed the district’s human resources director and manager on leave amid an investigation into allegations that special education students had been abused at a district elementary school.
Director of Human Resources Robert Freiling and Human Resources Manager Christine Trawinski were placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday, the district’s substitute superintendent, Charles Malone; school board president Susan Gibson; and vice president Heather Reynolds said in a message to the community.
The announcement comes after the district placed Superintendent Steven Yanni on leave last week, in the wake of a report by Disability Rights PA finding that children in an autistic support classroom at Jamison Elementary School suffered abuse at the hands of a teacher and educational assistant.
The abuse was first reported to the district in November by a personal care assistant who said children were restrained, physically punished, deprived of water, left naked for extended periods, and prevented from using speech devices, according to Disability Rights, which said numerous staff members corroborated the allegations.
It also found that district administrators had failed to adequately investigate and report the abuse — faulting Yanni for not fully disclosing the allegations to ChildLine, the state child protective services hotline, and administrators for saying the district had found no evidence of abuse, when in fact it had, according to Disability Rights.
Local police and the Bucks County district attorney have defended their investigations, with the district attorney standing by her decision not to prosecute.
A spokesperson for Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said earlier this week that an investigation by Sunday’s office was “ongoing,” but declined to elaborate.
Central Bucks’ school board earlier this year hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations; findings from that review have not yet been released.
Freiling and Trawinski — like Yanni — are on leave pending the results of that investigation, officials said Wednesday. They said the district would use an external human relations consultant.
“We wish to again assure you that district operations and the delivery of instruction to students will continue uninterrupted,” officials said. “We are committed to navigating this difficult period in our district with unwavering focus on maintaining the educational experience for students, underpinned by our ultimate priority: the safety of our students.”