Students were sexually abused over more than 50 years at a small private school in Bucks County, and although administrators knew of the crimes, they weren’t reported to authorities, a county grand jury report says.
Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub says charges won’t be brought but changes must be made after a county grand jury’s report details sexual abuse at Solebury School. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)
Most of the acts are past the statute of limitations so charges can’t be brought, and the one case that could be prosecuted won’t be at the request of the victim, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release Wednesday.
Solebury School, a seventh- through 12th-grade day and boarding school just north of New Hope, has made changes since the current administration became aware in recent years of the abuse, but the grand jury suggested more changes are necessary.
“Although we are unable to proceed against the perpetrators, some of whom are deceased, it is important to expose how these crimes were allowed to occur and how they were concealed for so long,” District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said.
“We send our kids to school to learn, and we trust that they will be safe. Solebury School violated this social compact for over 50 years,” he said. “Its prior administrations practiced willful blindness while its teachers took advantage of the parents’ trust and violated the children in their care. Preying on these children was like shooting fish in a barrel. This was child predation under the guise of progressive education. It’s unconscionable.”
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A school spokeswoman wasn’t immediately available to comment.
One of the victims wanted the grand jury to understand that the impact of the abuse was lifelong.
“I want people to understand, yes, I’m 77, but I want you to understand this has been with me my whole life,” a victim testified.
The assaults happened on the school’s 90-acre campus and as far away as New York City, the grand jury reported.
The school’s “unconventional approach” — students called teachers by their first names and they often socialized and formed close relationships — allowed for a “relaxed, informal learning environment,” the district attorney’s office said.
But the same circumstances that led to “an excellent education” empowered “select faculty members who groomed, manipulated and sexually abused” students, the grand jury said.
“Certain administrators did nothing to protect these students or support them once the abuse occurred,” the report said. The abuse “could have been stopped if those select school administrators intervened or investigated when the abuse was ongoing.”
When current Headmaster Tom Wilschultz learned of the history of abuse, he “urged victims to come forward, admitted the school’s guilt and instituted new policies,” the district attorney’s office said.
“The environment paved the way for abuse of students,” the report said.
During those more than five decades, only one teacher was prosecuted, the district attorney’s office said. David Chadwick was arrested in November 1996 after a “sexual relationship” with a 10th-grade girl in 1993-94, authorities said. The school didn’t alert police even though administrators knew of the abuse and Chadwick was allowed to finish the semester as a teacher, the district attorney’s office said. The student and her family reported the crimes in 1996 to Solebury Township police, the grand jury report says.
Chadwick was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, endangering the welfare of children and correction of minors, the district attorney’s office said. He was sentenced to one to three years in prison. The victim — she did not appear before the grand jury, saying she was still traumatized — received a settlement of between $700,000 and $800,000 after suing the school, according to the district attorney.
The grand jury report describes several victims’ “credible” testimony of how they were “lured,” “raped” and “molested,” with one such act occurring during a 10-grader’s prom. Sexual contact in some cases continued well after after the students graduated, the report says.
Victims added that the trauma haunted them throughout their lives, the grand jury said.
In one case, the headmistress refused to act after a girl was kissed by a “school trustee and large financial donor” because of “the man’s influence,” the grand jury said.
Several former Solebury employees took the Fifth Amendment rather than answer specific questions from the grand jury, the report says.
In 2014, the school sent a mass mailing “to tell the community of allegations against the school,” the district attorney’s office said.
In addition to “stronger policies” implemented by Gobahis Wilschultz including reporting allegations of sexual abuse to police, parents and Childline and annual training, the grand jury insisted more be done.
Drug and alcohol testing for faculty and staff, zero-tolerance campus drug policies, hiring additional security for boarding students and immediate firing of any faculty member facing an allegation were among the grand jury’s recommendations.
“The thoroughness of this grand jury’s work will help ensure that Solebury School, and other institutions like it, take the necessary steps to prevent our children from being preyed upon in the future,” Weintraub said in the news release.
Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
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