Central Bucks engaged in a ‘concerted cover-up’ of abuse at elementary school, lawsuit says

The parents of a nonverbal autistic 10-year-old who was among the students the Central Bucks School District has said were abused in an elementary school classroom in 2024 have filed a lawsuit against the district and nearly a dozen former and current employees.

James Pepper, a former school board member, and his wife, Lisa Pepper, say their son’s “horrific abuses” at Jamison Elementary School amounted to a “calculated pattern of debasement” that district and school leadership failed to report as part of a “concerted cover-up.”

The bulk of the 92-page complaint, filed Tuesday in a Philadelphia federal court, outlines events that began in fall 2024, when a special education aide reported the abuse. Her allegations rocked Pennsylvania’s third-largest district, spurring an investigation by a disability rights watchdog, public outcry, and a series of terminations that included the district’s superintendent.

Now, the Peppers are suing Central Bucks, as well as former superintendent Steven Yanni, former Jamison principal David Heineman, other former district administrators, the special education teacher and educational assistant accused of misconduct, and teachers’ union representatives.

The district continued to endanger the child after learning about the abuse, the suit says, and the alleged “cover-up” was motivated by James Pepper’s position as a board member and history of advocacy.

“This case involves an extraordinary betrayal of a child who depended entirely on the adults around him for his safety, education, and care,” M. Stewart Ryan, the attorney representing the parents, said in a statement.

Central Bucks spokesperson Michael Petitti said in a statement that the district “has acknowledged what occurred” in that classroom.

Petitti said the district “took the actions within its power” to discipline employees, including firing Yanni, Heineman, and the former special education director, Alyssa Wright. It also “fully litigated” terminations of the teacher and educational assistant, Petitti said, and “implemented significant changes at Jamison Elementary School to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.”

“The district understands that none of these actions can change what happened,” Petitti said.

District officials learned about the allegations in November 2024 from Alyssa Kline, who was assigned as the one-on-one aide for the Peppers’ child.

Kline said special education teacher Gabrielle McDaniel and educational assistant Rachel Aussprung improperly restrained and punished the Peppers’ child, among other forms of abuse.

The abuse included “nearly 3,000 illegal restraints ... water restriction, corporal punishment, forced exposure to nudity and sexual self-stimulation, screaming, mocking, belittling, and concealment of a head injury in a series of events that were intended to, and indeed did, dehumanize” the boy, the lawsuit says.

The nonverbal child couldn’t share his experience in school, and his parents were not initially informed of the accusations, the suit says. The district reassigned Kline days after she made the allegations, telling the Peppers the reason for the change was a “personal conflict” between the aide and classroom staff, according to the complaint.

The Peppers only learned about the allegations of abuse in December, when Kline reached out to share what she had reported with the parents, the suit says. But in an official letter that month, the district said its investigation found “no evidence of abuse.”

School board members initially stood by district officials, who noted police had not found any abuse. But that changed in April 2025 when a report from the watchdog group Disability Rights Pennsylvania found that the teacher and assistant illegally restrained students, creating a “reasonable likelihood of bodily injury” and likely interfering with their breathing, among other abusive behaviors.

It also faulted Yanni and other administrators for failing to adequately investigate the allegations, and accused Yanni of withholding information from police.

The school board terminated Yanni and Heineman in October. Pepper recused himself from the vote and the preceding termination hearings.

Yanni, now the CEO of Northwood Charter School in Philadelphia, did not respond to a request for comment.

A lawyer for Heineman did not return a request for comment. Neither did a lawyer for McDaniel and Aussprung, who have sued the district since their terminations. Wright, whose lawyer did not return a request for comment, has also sued the district, saying she was scapegoated.

» READ MORE: Teacher and assistant accused of abusing autistic students at Jamison Elementary sue Central Bucks

The Peppers’ lawsuit says district and union officials, whom Kline also reached out to, failed to report the abuse .

Cara Alderfer, the union president, declined to comment Tuesday.

The Peppers’ lawsuit alleges a sprawling cover-up that started the moment Kline made the allegations.

The accused teacher and assistant weren’t removed from the classroom, and the district recommended that McDaniel or Aussprung take the Peppers’ child to therapy sessions after Kline was reassigned, according to the complaint.

The district did not turn over an email outlining Kline’s allegations to Disability Rights Pennsylvania, the suit says.

Yanni and other officials “were actively engaged in a conspiracy to bury the reports of child abuse they had received,” the complaint says.

The complaint blames a few factors as motivating the alleged “cover-up.”

Yanni, who took over the deeply divided district after a bitter and highly publicized school board election won by Democrats, said one of his goals was to keep the school system “out of the newspaper,” the suit says.

» READ MORE: School board culture wars caused the most upheaval in purple districts, a new study finds

And the district was motivated to retaliate against Pepper — then the only Republican on the board — for stances he previously took against the district, the suit says.

The actions of the school district and its employees deprived the Peppers’ son of “safety, liberty, and bodily integrity,” the complaint says.

“It is devastating to learn that our son was treated this way by the very people we trusted to care for and protect him,” the Pepper family said in a statement. “Our son and entire family have been changed forever. This can never happen again to another child.”