Penn-Delco superintendent resigns
Leslye S. Abrutyn, superintendent of Delaware County's Penn-Delco School District since 1997, has abruptly resigned. Dave Seitz, president of the Penn-Delco school board, said yesterday that he received a letter from Abrutyn announcing her resignation on Monday, effective immediately.
Leslye S. Abrutyn, superintendent of Delaware County's
» READ MORE: Penn-Delco School District
since 1997, has abruptly resigned.
Dave Seitz, president of the Penn-Delco school board, said yesterday that he received a letter from Abrutyn announcing her resignation on Monday, effective immediately.
"She's been under mounting pressure," Seitz said, including the death of her husband in February and an ongoing criminal investigation into the school district's relationship with Quick Start Preschools of Aston, which had operated before- and after-school child-care programs in school buildings.
The district terminated its contract with Quick Start after the investigation was disclosed this year.
Abrutyn has spoken to Delaware County criminal investigators about the district's ties to the preschool operator, Seitz said. He said he did not know the status of the investigation.
"They collect information - they don't tell us anything. That's the way they function," Seitz said.
A call to the Delaware County District Attorney's Office yesterday was not returned.
Calls to G. Guy Smith, Abrutyn's lawyer, and to Quick Start also were not returned.
Under Abrutyn's leadership, the 3,300-student school district, with children from Aston Township, Brookhaven Borough and Parkside Borough, did well on the state's annual No Child Left Behind accountability test. Only three of the 15 school districts in Delaware County have met the test's benchmarks every year since testing began in 2003. Penn-Delco was one; the others are Radnor and Garnet Valley.
But last year was a difficult one. In addition to the preschool investigation, School Board President Keith Crego resigned in November, after well-publicized domestic-abuse allegations against him were filed and then withdrawn by former school board member Christina Fink, with whom he had a personal relationship. Crego also filed and withdrew domestic-abuse allegations against Fink.
Several other school board members also have resigned in the last year.
Abrutyn came to the district in March 1993 as an assistant superintendent. Her latest contract ran until March 2008. She was paid $196,520 last school year, district officials said.
