Putting the report out a good step, but answers needed
By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times
On Monday afternoon, the Coatesville Area School District released the investigative report compiled by Conrad O’Brien and submitted to the board and administration in April of 2014. it details gross mismanagement, bullying, conspiracy, probable obstruction of justice and more — much as the Grand Jury report issued last December detailed.
There is even more in the report than we saw from the Grand Jury report — if you care about the Coatesville area and it’s schools, it is must reading. You can see for yourself, here.
It is nearly 200 pages detailing a school district run primarily for the benefit of a handful of school administrators and Board of Education members. It is nothing short of sickening.
It does prompt a lot of questions, though.
The last thing I expected to see in the report was a reference to is Chester County Republican Committee Chairman Val DiGiorgio, but there it was.
If I’m reading the report right, it suggested that former Board of Education President Neil Campbell was keeping DiGiorgio in the loop on the texting scandal before the board made it public and even intended to clear his statement on the matter through the county GOP chair. If this is so, as noted in an email from former solicitor James Ellison to Campbell, DiGiorgio is going to have to clarify what he knew and when.
“Its 2 am and I need sleep. I will work on part 11 at 5 am and endeavor to get it to you all by 9/10 am. I must insist that this shared with NO ONE prior to our meeting tomorrow. Not even board members. Neil, I know your county chairman wants to review it first, but I would recommend that he not. Everyone is just going to have to trust us on this one,” Ellison wrote in a memo, Sept. 24, 2013.
This report said, as did the grand jury report before it, and as we’ve reported since 2013, there was a clear effort by board members, specifically Tonya Thames Taylor (ironically at the time, president of the Coatesville NAACP), to cover up the racist texts. Taylor lied repeatedly — apparently to the grand jury, certainly to me in more than one interview, and was part of a conspiracy to try to buy silence from members of the administration.
So, again, I ask: where are the criminal charges?
Obstruction of justice is obstruction of justice. It’s bad. When done by an elected official, it’s much, much worse.
Another question: why is Erika Zeigler still employed by the school district? And why did it take so long to remove Assistant Superintendent Angelo Romaniello? I’m gathering some of it is related to Act 93 rules in terms of removing school administrators, but it sure seems like moves could have been made more quickly.
And despite warning from a number of media members and members of the community that the district was in dire fiscal shape, the board of education continued to act as if all was wrong. Meanwhile, some $31 million in reserves were burned through, and now it appears that the district has a structural deficit of nearly $5 million.
These are questions that need to be answered.
But a couple of other thoughts: that the district put the entire report out, minus a few names, is also telling. New Superintendent Dr. Cathy Taschner deserves credit for being willing to put all of this out there, horrible as it is.
Another positive: much of the current school board is new and notably better. There are a couple of holdovers from the era described in the report — and if they had any common decency, they’d have already resigned.
In the end, the report speaks for itself. And while it is good that change continues — more is needed and the community must insist on it, and support those who are working for good.
