9 school workers abused elementary students in emotional support program, PA cops say
Elementary school children in a Pennsylvania school’s “positive emotional support program” were afraid to go to school because they didn’t want to be placed in a restraint, Pennsylvania prosecutors said.
Now, 20 school workers at Chester Community Charter School are facing charges related to the treatment of 26 children between kindergarten and fifth grade, Chester County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in a March 31 news release.
The school said they relied on a local vendor for classroom management staff, according to March 31 statement posted to their website. They accused the vendor of “misrepresentations and blatant lies” about staff training.
Nine of the workers are facing multiple charges including conspiracy, simple assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a child and failure to report endangering the welfare of a child, officials said.
The other 11 workers are facing at least one count of failure to report endangering of a child, according to prosecutors. All school workers involved were mandated reporters.
As a form of punishment, the workers would hold students in restraints, prosecutors said.
The students, some of whom were as young as 5 years old, were also threatened with what they called “shoulder work,” officials said.
“Shoulder work involved pinching students on pressure points near their necks, placing them in holds with their arms crossed in front of them, and having a knee applied to their back until the student was brought to the ground,” prosecutors said.
Several of the workers charged in this case came from a staffing company in Chester, prosecutors said. Police learned that those staff members were not trained in how to use restraints or crisis prevention, according to the news release.
Any use of restraint is required to be recorded by the school, as per state law, according to prosecutors. The school’s principal said no uses of restraints were reported in 2024, which is when most of the alleged abuse took place, officials said.
“This case is every parents’ nightmare. We send our children to school expecting the adults will keep them safe, not abuse them physically and emotionally,” Stollsteimer said in a statement.
The investigation started in January 2025 when two parents reported the use of restraints to the school, according to officials.
The school said it has cooperated with the criminal investigation.
Chester is about a 20-mile drive southwest from Philadelphia.
