As Cheltenham’s superintendent resigns, families say safety problems extended beyond football program

Cheltenham Superintendent Brian Scriven resigned Thursday, a little more than a week after prosecutors charged four football coaches and six players in connection with violent assaults against a player last season in a high school locker room.

The superintendent’s resignation, effective immediately, came amid community outcry over the district’s handling of the August and September 2025 incidents, which prosecutors say both involved students attacking a 15-year-old and using a broomstick to poke at his buttocks.

Yet the district did not uncover that there had been two assaults, and administrators appeared to downplay a report from the 15-year-old’s mother, according to the Montgomery County grand jury that recommended the charges. It described a “level of incompetence” in the district that “put every young man on the football team at risk.”

Some parents who have been battling the district to take student safety more seriously said Scriven and his administration did not fail only in overseeing the football program.

“I see a complete lack of urgency,” said one mother who has been among a group of parents pressing the district since October to address violent incidents at Cheltenham Elementary School. The mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation for her child, said administrators still have not answered questions about how students are disciplined and how others are supported after assaults.

Another Cheltenham Elementary parent, Shanyl Jones, said her daughter, an incoming second grader, twice experienced sexual touching and comments in school. In kindergarten, a boy repeatedly touched her against her will, conduct that escalated to him grabbing her vagina, Jones said.

The boy also made sexually explicit comments to her daughter, Jones said. She reported the conduct and filed a Title IX sexual harassment case; the school moved the boy to a different classroom, she said.

After a separate boy made sexual comments to Jones’ daughter in first grade, the principal called Jones and apologized, though the boy was not moved to a different classroom, Jones said.

News of the football charges “just tore me up on what my daughter’s future would be in the school system,” Jones said. “It gave me no assurance they’re going to be able to reconcile what’s happening now.”

Scriven said in his resignation letter Thursday that “this year has tested our community in ways none of us anticipated.”

“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,” he said.

The district has not commented on how else it plans to respond to the explosive grand jury report released last week, which described the response of several employees at the high school — identified only as Employees #1, #2, and #3 — as minimizing an assault reported by the 15-year-old’s mother, and trusting the word of the head coach, Terence Tolbert, that he had not instructed the student not to tell his parents what happened.

» READ MORE: He was assaulted by teammates in Cheltenham High’s locker room. Nearly a year later, his mom says he ‘can’t escape the situation.’

The district did not respond to questions this week about its hiring of Tolbert — who was among the four coaches charged — including whether it had sought references from Abington, which cut ties with him after one year as its head football coach. Some parents of football players told The Inquirer they had “pleaded” with Cheltenham administrators not to hire Tolbert, whom they accused of allowing bullying during his tenure at Abington Senior High School.

Nor did the district respond to questions about whether it would take action against any employees, including those described in the grand jury report.

The Cheltenham High School vice principal whom the mother said she had reported allegations to, Mark Hoff, was named vice principal at Wyncote Elementary last month.

The grand jury report “details very troubling questions about the management and operation of the district’s athletic programs, including the football program,” school board president Leah Mulhearn said in a statement this week. “Our highest priority is the safety and welfare of the children we serve.”

Mulhearn, who did not address questions about Cheltenham Elementary in the statement, said the board was “focused on conducting a comprehensive review of the grand jury’s findings, including our policies and practices related to athletics, as the first step in implementing measures to ensure that no such conduct ever occurs again at our schools.”

The district has said a Title IX investigation into the allegations will soon be finished, with possible discipline for students. Two 18-year-old players charged as adults — the other four were charged as juveniles — have already graduated.

State Rep. Napoleon Nelson (D., Montgomery) said this week he plans to introduce legislation that would classify hazing as child abuse — a recommendation of the grand jury’s — requiring school employees to report allegations to the police.

Community members are closely watching the school board’s next steps. Sharif El-Mekki, a nationally known Philadelphia-based educator who runs the Center for Black Educator Development and previously led Mastery Shoemaker Charter School, called on the school board in a letter to apologize to the victimized student and commission an independent investigation into the district administration’s conduct.

“Every student in Cheltenham, every teacher, every parent, and every young leader in Montgomery County is being taught something right now by how the district is responding,” El-Mekki said.

Cheltenham Elementary parents said they raised concerns to administrators last October, after they heard from their children that a student touched another student’s penis sexually in class, over his clothes, in view of classmates.

Some initially did not believe it. “We would have been told about it,” said one mother, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation against her child.

Parents began talking to one another to confirm what happened. Other parents and students told them the same child had been involved in previous sexual incidents, two mothers said.

A group of parents sent an email on Oct. 3 to ShaVon Savage, then the district’s assistant superintendent, saying they had recently learned that a student “touched another child sexually during class time” and that the child had been involved in “multiple sexual incidents over the past few years.” They asked to be notified about instances of physical or sexual assault.

In the email, shared with The Inquirer, they also asked for additional supervision and counseling for students with behavioral challenges and described an “environment of ongoing chaos” at the school, which last year served a larger number of students with emotional support needs than the district’s other three elementary schools.

Savage wrote back 10 days later, saying she needed more details “to conduct a full and thorough investigation,” according to an email shared with The Inquirer. She also said that when a situation poses a “threat to a particular school community,” the district would communicate with parents, but could not share details about particular children due to federal privacy laws.

Savage met with some parents in early November and said she would visit the school — though parents were unsure whether she did, the mothers said.

Their concerns escalated when on Dec. 5, a Friday, the school’s principal, Stephanie Junod, was assaulted by a student, according to the mothers.

That night, Scriven, the superintendent, sent an email to school parents, informing them that “while Ms. Junod was attempting to de-escalate a situation with a high-needs student, she was struck in the head by their thermos.” Scriven said the principal was “expected to make a full recovery.” Junod could not be reached for comment.

Scriven said central office staff would be at the school the following Monday “to begin implementing additional measures to strengthen safety and provide more comprehensive support for students who require additional behavioral interventions.”

The mothers were angry that the district had not already been providing that support. Around the same time as Junod’s injury, they said, there was an assault on a student, and “at least two” against staff members, one of the mothers said.

Parents had a meeting scheduled with Savage for Dec. 15, but administrators pushed it to January, one of the mothers said.

Scriven met with parents on Jan. 8 and apologized for not treating their concerns urgently enough, according to the mother, who said Scriven also assured parents that “the football situation had been handled.”

“Obviously, that was a lie,” she said.

Scriven met with them again on Feb. 25 and said changes would be made, including putting a behavioral specialist at the school four days a week, according to the mother.

Scriven did not mention that Junod would be resigning, the mother said — a decision announced shortly after the meeting.

Problems at the school continued.

On March 26, parents said, a student assaulted five staff members — including punching one in the face — in view of other children. Police came to the school.

The district did not immediately notify parents. But Scriven sent an email to the school community the next day, reporting that “an emotional support student had an episode during which he eloped from the building and engaged in physical altercations with a number of staff as they were trying to de-escalate” the situation.

“While I cannot share individual student consequences or placements, I can assure you that this situation is being addressed with the highest level of seriousness and urgency,” Scriven said in the email.

In an email the next day demanding a meeting with administrators, one parent wrote: “The frustration among parents has reached a boiling point.”

“Information is simply not being shared, and critical questions regarding the safety and education of our children are being ignored,” the parent said in the email, which one of the mothers shared with The Inquirer.

Scriven responded to the parents on April 14.

“I understand the urgency of your concerns and sincerely apologize for the delay in providing a comprehensive response,” Scriven said, in an email the mother shared with The Inquirer.

Scriven said the school’s new principal, Shareese Nelson, had needed time to settle into the job, but “we are prepared to move forward in a more formal and collaborative manner.” He invited families to the school for an April 29 community meeting.

The meeting was “highly emotional,” one of the mothers said, with parents sharing their children’s experiences. After the meeting, Scriven told a 6abc reporter: “I was slow to respond. I do have to own that, and rectify that immediately.”

Shanyl Jones recalled that administrators seemed “completely unprepared” during the meeting to address parents’ safety concerns.

In a message to the community May 6, the school board acknowledged “concerns around safety and student conduct have presented challenges that we continue to navigate.”

The board said it took “all concerns that are raised with us as a board” seriously and was paying attention to how they were addressed.

It also stood by Scriven, a former Baltimore County Public Schools administrator who was named Cheltenham’s superintendent in 2021.

“Five years ago, the board invested in Dr. Scriven and his vision for the district,” the board said, calling the superintendent a “strong strategic thinker.”

“We continue to support him and his vision,” it said.

On Thursday, Mulhearn said in a statement that the board thanked Scriven “for his dedicated service to Cheltenham public schools.” She said the board had selected Joshua Sweigard, Cheltenham’s director of business services, as acting superintendent.

While the district in May released an action plan for Cheltenham Elementary, including a safety audit, staff training, and monthly reports on school incidents, the mothers said it still has not clearly explained how it handles student assaults, and how kids who are victimized or witness them are supported.

Until it does, “beginning from kindergarten up, we are not going to see this change in any meaningful way,” one of the mothers said. “This is not a one-off event.”