After a teacher struck infants, an administrator at a Chester County preschool waited to report the abuse, police say
Tiffany Nichols, the executive director of The Malvern School in Westtown Township, waited to report the abuse, police said.
The executive director of a Chester County preschool was charged this week for allegedly waiting three days to report documented instances of child abuse at the school, and then understating its severity, a step that delayed critical scrutiny of the case, investigators said.
Tiffany Nichols, 39, of Kennett Square, was charged Tuesday with endangering the welfare of a child and failure to report child abuse, according to court records. She was released on $35,000 unsecured bail. Her attorney, Joseph Lesniak, did not respond to a request for comment.
Chester County District Attorney Deborah Ryan called Nichols’ behavior “astonishing” and said her inaction allowed the abuse to continue.
“As the executive director and a mandated reporter, it was the legal and moral duty of Tiffany Nichols to ensure the safety and care of all children at The Malvern School,” Ryan said. “It is unconscionable that the defendant failed to protect these innocent, nonverbal, and defenseless young children.”
Prosecutors allege that three teachers told Nichols, who runs school’s location in Westtown Township, that they witnessed Victoria Aronson, a former teacher at the preschool, abuse children there.
Authorities say Aronson, 36, slammed infants onto changing tables, cursed at them for crying, and put one child in a headlock, according to court documents. She’s awaiting trial on charges of aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children, and related offenses
The witnesses allegedly reported the abuse to Nichols on Sept. 28, the day it first occurred, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her arrest. Two additional reports were allegedly made to her in the next two days, with one teacher sending Nichols an email detailing the abuse she said she observed.
State law requires child providers to immediately contact Pennsylvania’s ChildLine reporting system after being presented with evidence of abuse. Prosecutors say Nichols waited until about 10 p.m. on Oct. 1 to file a report. And she had allowed Aronson to keep working with children at the school until then, the affidavit said.
Additionally, Nichols’ report to ChildLine didn’t fully detail the abuse, according to the affidavit, and was referred to a different agency. It wasn’t until six days later, when investigators contacted the witnesses, that the proper probe began, they said.