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The Butler Area School District's maintenance director has resigned, just days after its superintendent stepped down in the aftermath of a scandal involving lead-tainted water.
The school district posted on its website Thursday that it received and accepted the resignation of Glenn Terwilliger.
Dale Lumley, the former superintendent, resigned Sunday and is named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit against the school district. The lawsuit contends that Lumley and administrators concealed information for months that Summit's water supply contained dangerous amounts of lead.
The school district announced in a Jan. 20 letter to parents that students and staff at the elementary school had been told not to drink the water from a well on the property because it had been contaminated with lead. But lawyers for plaintiff Jennifer Tait contend the administration knew of lead problems in August and conspired to stay silent.
Further testing last week found E. coli bacteria in the well that supplies the school, prompting the building to be closed indefinitely. Students at Summit temporarily are attending classes in the shuttered Broad Street School until the water issues are resolved.
The lawsuit, filed as a class-action complaint on behalf of all of the students, alleges the district and Lumley took no action to correct the water issue and didn't inform families. Their lack of action created “a school full of poisonous drinking water,” the lawsuit contends.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by attorneys Douglas Olcott of New Castle and Brendan Lupetin, whose firm of Meyers, Evans, Lupetin & Unatin is in Pittsburgh.
Ben Schmitt is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bschmitt@tribweb.com.
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