middletown high school scandal
The problems at St. George's burst into view in mid-December, about a week before the in-house report was issued, when The Boston Globe reported the story of Anne Scott, who said she was repeatedly raped by athletic trainer Al Gibbs as a 15-year-old in the 1970s. Perhaps the groups most significant feat of reporting came in June 1996, when a Middletown sheriffs lieutenant escorted Isseks and two female students into the countys sheriff station. Groome said he followed up with Peterson in 2011 and then met with him, but again no action was taken. Smiths words are followed by shots of rust-coloured leachate pooling on the soil: unidentified chemicals oozing from the waste mass. January 25, 2023. In a way, the same critical-thinking skills St. Georges prides itself on teaching had turned against their creator. What had the students found out? Today, Isseks has new allies. An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Instead, under the tutelage of Middletown highs popular English teacher, Fred Isseks, a rowdy and diverse group of teenagers organised themselves into an investigative journalism unit. WebMiddletown High School Athletic Director, Scott Govern, was named Head Coach at Tuesdays night school board meeting. He opened a document box, reached inside, and said, This is what youre looking for, right? Out came the missing logbook. Coleman did not return messages seeking comment. WebAfter a hazing scandal cost the Middletown Area High School football team their 2022 season, the school board named athletic director Scott Govern as the new head football WebThree Middletown football players families have retained lawyers from a Harrisburg firm known for taking on sexual abuse cases in civil court, according to one of the law partners. The report also clearly states that it only addresses sites recognised by the US Environmental Protection Agency. MIDDLETOWN, Pa. (AP) A Pennsylvania school district has announced it's canceling its high school's football season after obtaining a video Chelton L. Hunter, Superintendent of Schools, speaks during a Middletown school board meeting on the high school football hazing incident. Jon Gunther, who graduated in 2000, and took Isseks course early in his high school years, now practises environmental law. The latest news from across Lancaster County, delivered first thing every morning. After football team hazing report, Middletown names acting head coach. The alleged August assault took place in the team's turf room with no adult supervision for 23 minutes. The deputies had also noted every single ticket theyd written to drivers hauling prohibited loads though, to the deputies frustration, most of these tickets simply disappeared, unpaid, never to be submitted to local courts. - The Rev. To his delight, several said yes. He alleged a history teacher at Thorne Middle School sexually abused him "hundreds, if not thousands of times" from 1978 to 1983. Middletowns school board voted Tuesday night to expel an eighth student in connection with the hazing incidents on the high school football team. Middletown Everyone keeing an eye on the scandal that surrounded then-Middletown school Superintendent no Robert Sigler's arrest on sodomy charges was waiting for a shake-up that never happened. These experiences contributed to a sense among the students that they might be getting in over their heads. 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Rather, two of these individuals committed repeated sexual assaults and encouraged others to participate under the guise of hazing.. Middletown Area High School has a new head football coach after a hazing scandal that led to the cancellation of its2022 football season. Yesterday, they added another five-star recruit at this position when New Haven (Ind.) Climate crisis-enhanced storms of the near-future pose a very real risk of catastrophic flooding at sites of toxic waste storage, the paper concludes, including several sites in New York State, along the Hudson River. He said his teacher would first ask him to do small favors, such as wash his car, and then it progressed to private meetings at Guillandeu's Harmony Road home, where the alleged sexual encounters took place "hundreds" of times. ''When someone does something like that, you don't have much respect for the school.''. I loved the power of telling stories and getting adults upset, she says with a laugh. The trees were falling over in the wrong direction. White refused to comment when reached by the AP. The man says that between the years of 1995 -1997, Sherry Diodato, a former Language Arts teacher at Thompson Middle School, befriended him, groomed him and began a sexual relationship with him. 
According to the district attorney, "police learned that three other students were also assaulted over the last year during various incidents, with at least one incident occurring at a residence.". Industrial solvents, liquid refrigerants, crushed battery casings, petroleum additives, printing inks and untreated medical waste, including radioactive isotopes: it all flooded the landfills around Middletown, constructed without ground liners, atop freshwater aquifers that fed the regions drinking wells. Editors note: This story was updated at 5:30 p.m., Aug. 13, 2022 with new details. There were warnings of arrest from the county sheriff; near-total disinterest from the citys local newspaper; public frustration from regional politicians; and at least one death threat. This continued for a month, he said, at her home or in parks and all when his teacher's then-fianc, Dr. Diodato, was not at home. Status: Resigned as assistant superintendent to take administrative position at a New York City school; last day is to. However, at her home the two would sit "side-by-side on her couch in the upstairs multi-purpose room, talking, smoking cigarettes that she provided, and listening to music," read the lawsuit. More than a year after the documentary was finished, Middletown politicians found themselves confronting yet another controversial project, this time a waste-to-ethanol plant. "The kind of hazing that occurred in our facilities with this team is reprehensible," Hunter wrote. Trespassing across the course and filming themselves every step of the way, as golfers play in the background the students locate this illegal dump, finding a dozen crushed, 55-gallon chemical drums half-buried in the earth. There was an error processing your request. (One of Isseks former students suggests to me that perhaps this response was not unfair: Isseks, at the very least, was not discouraging minors under his supervision from trespassing and publicly antagonising figures allegedly connected to the New York mafia.) At one point, a DEC employee arrives and begins taking photographs of us from the opposite river bank. Superintendent Chelton Hunter released a written statement promising discipline for any students involved. Whats more, the log confirmed that much of this dumping had been done by haulage firms connected to the East Coast mob, including one owned by the Mongelli organised crime family. WebSchool officials last month said they had decided to cancel the 2022 football season after learning there was a second video and that the number of players involved was larger Gettle also indicated all the cases will be handled by the juvenile system because each suspect is under 18 years old. Their daughter graduated from Middletown high in 2010; Isseks retired from teaching the following year. This is a dangerous landfill.. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Pursue the chemicals, Stone urges me, insisting that the story of these landfills is far from over, their legacy now hidden in the bodies of local animals, from birds to fish. The goal was to train the schools teenage students in film-making and media production, using local subjects as a starting point perhaps a documentary about the citys sports teams or an amateur talkshow. There is no statute of limitations on rape in Rhode Island. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. The school acknowledged he raped or otherwise abused at least 17 students. Landscape, for Isseks, is drama solidified. The students had been left alone in the turf room without any adult presence. More: This Freshman has five college offers before playing first high school game, NIL News: St. John Bosco announces first-of-its-kind NIL deal with Sports Performance group, SCORES: Live in-game results around the nation as they happen, Live-Stream your teams games in 2022 on the NFHS Network. I would not be directing television now if it wasnt for Fred, she says. Just one week after our visit, however, the US General Accounting Office releases a report echoing Isseks warning. 
Middletown High School (Pa.) has canceled its 2022 football season in light of new evidence in a hazing scandal. In class, he said she would touch different areas of his body, such as his knees and made gestures and/or comments to the student, expressing the sentiment that she viewed him as special.. Middletown High School sign. One former student joked to me that the class became a surreal mix of rap videos and corrupt politicians. This investigation did not involve just hazing or boys will be boys conduct, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Gettle said. The Middletown School District has canceled the high school's football season after investig, Middletown Area School District superintendent Dr. Chelton Hunter released a statement Monda. It was in 1993, however, that the class had perhaps its ultimate brush with power. 
In 2002, Groome said, he sent a letter to Hamblet describing what happened. Published: Feb. 24, 2022 at 8:16 PM PST. He also made sure the students parents knew exactly what the class was up to and when, becoming long-term friends with many in the process. Neither White nor Coleman has ever been charged. MacLeish said he has now spoken to six of Coleman's alleged victims. Birmingham tells me that he grew accustomed to seeing local politicians annoyed at the students, irritated by Birminghams own habit of showing up to film town hall meetings, filing endless freedom of information requests. The Buckeyes should remain competitive for the foreseeable future, having recruited 10 of the top 150 players in the 2023 cycle going by (). Middletown sits amid rich, rolling agricultural lands and mountains with biblical names, such as Mount Adam and Mount Eve. In the beginning, I just thought it was too fantastical to be true, Birmingham says. As the months since Sigler's arrest in January 2003 slid off the calendar, many of those same players who seemed immune to the fever pitch of gossip and accusations that surrounded Sigler's arrest slipped away as well. Richards is now headmaster at a Connecticut boarding school. Paul Johnson: Middletown school board member; Bernard Cohen, principal for the high school, brought concerns about Sigler's behavior to Johnson; Johnson, then board president, wrote letter to Sigler in April 2002, ordering Sigler to end all contact with the boy Sigler later admitted to sodomizing; never contacted authorities about concerns. Some haulage firms, they wrote, deliberately stockpiled trucks filled with liquid toxins, waiting for rainy days; their drivers would then circle around on local freeways with their valves open, draining hazardous chemicals directly on to the roadbed. Several Middletown residents said that Guillandeu has since died; however, he lived on Harmony Road for years. The student was pulled aside at a late-night field party an outdoor get-together by the adult son of a local politician. 
The plaintiff is seeking $50 million in damages from the Middletown school district. Now a family man, running his own tutoring business, Birmingham tells me that Isseks class awakened in him a passion for environmental conservation. 
Missouri tornado kills at least 5 people, causes "widespread" damage, Trump attorney says "there was no scheme and there was no crime", Tech executive Bob Lee stabbed to death in San Francisco, FBI takes down marketplace that sold millions of stolen identities, Chicago firefighter killed battling high-rise blaze; others injured, Gender-affirming care for transgender youth banned in Idaho, Former San Diego detective pleads guilty to operating sex parlors, Twitter labels NPR as "state-affiliated media". sseks is still in close contact with many of the students who passed through his classroom. While Isseks class suggests an early affinity with todays youth climate activists, it also relied upon slightly different tactics, based not in protest or spectacle, but documentation. Even those he has not kept in touch with remember him fondly: when we go out for dinner at a local pizza restaurant, a man sitting several tables away recognises him, offers an effusive hello, and explains that he took Isseks English class in the late 80s. He is being held at the Orange County Jail on $500,000 bail. Over the next six years, culminating in 1997, students passing through Isseks high school class would film, edit, and release a feature-length documentary that exposed a generations worth of illegal, mob-connected dumping of toxic materials in their part of New York state. Whether or not Bohnwagners tomb, or those hundreds of discarded refrigerators, even exist is unclear; when I ask the parks commissioner for Orange County about these allegations, he responds that this is the first time he has ever heard such rumours. The teams head coach Scott Acri had already stepped down last week and was replaced by Rob Brodish. John Gennarelli: A parent who circulated a petition in January 2003, calling for the resignations of the board and Patricia McLeod as acting superintendent because of their actions surrounding the Sigler scandal; ran unsuccessfully for school board in May 2003; given "dedicated volunteer" award in June 2003; that same month he was banned from volunteer activities after accusations that he called kids "maggots.". WebThe Dauphin County (Pennsylvania) District Attorney has announced charges against 10 Middletown High School students stemming from alleged sexual assaults and hazing by They were literally going to plant grass on top of a known toxic waste dump and build a park and an adjacent school. That this never came to pass is at least one strike in the documentarys favour. Support local journalism. The problem will be relevant as long as its here.. Get the WITF Mobile App Is Middletown, as a community, safer today because of the students work? Some want the entire board swept clean. Robert Stein: High school psychologist who contacted Orange Ulster BOCES about suspicions he had regarding Sigler's relationship with the boy; distributed letter to staff members, parents, etc., calling the board of education "illegitimate"; asked the state to intervene and take control of the district. They added another one this morning when Pahokee (Fla.) four-star QB Austin Simmons announced his commitment to the Gators. 
Separately, Rhode Island state police are looking into possible sex-crime charges and other offenses, including failure to report abuse. In the film, we see Stone standing in the road, hands on his hips, loudly arguing with a landfill official; his attempts to run chemical tests had been consistently thwarted, his samples physically confiscated by police. A photo of a laughing Groome sitting in a trash can and holding a hockey stick was captioned: "It's better than a broomstick!". Please enable JavaScript to properly view our site. They exist in a kind of environmental blind spot. This afternoon, school officials began the difficult task of notifying the district's 1,000 teachers and staff members, and 6,300 students, about the charges against Mr. Sigler. For Hinchey, who died in November 2017, the Middletown high school students dedication was a shot in the arm; in the documentary, he seems energised. Subscribe to Our Newsletters, 4801 Lindle Road 
Police also charged one student with unlawful restraint, simple assault and hazing, three students with unlawful restraint and hazing and four students with violating the hazing statute. WebCBS Philadelphia 8/25/2022. These food groups support gut health. WebA womans claim of sexual abuse she suffered as a high school student more than two decades ago is continuing to haunt a San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District The $56,000-a-year Episcopal institution just outside Newport has about 400 high school-age students and a rich endowment of more than $140 million. Nevertheless, the question seems to haunt both Isseks and Birmingham: what did the documentary achieve? Despite Clintons thumbs-up, the narrator of this scene drily remarks that the students received no official response. Two students, both 17, are charged with multiple counts of criminal attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, unlawful restraint, simple assault and hazing, according to the release. On Aug. 12, Lower Swatara Township police received a report from Middletown Area High School that a video was posted on social media showing an assault on a football player during a practice on Aug. 11, the release said. ''Mr. In 2004, he said, he forwarded a copy to Peterson. Police officials said they began investigating Mr. Sigler on Wednesday, after receiving a complaint about him, but they refused to say who had made the complaint. "I want this school to thrive in the future, but it cannot thrive until we flush out the bad, and Eric Peterson has got to go," Groome said. 
They were attempting to discover the truth about a logbook from the Wallkill landfill. As a result of the alleged hazing, seven students have been expelled from Middletown High School and an eighth is being voted on during tonights school board meeting. The man told the AP that he reported it to the school the following year, after he learned Coleman had asked another boy to sleep in his bed during a choir tour of England. He added that the school's willingness to pay for therapy was "in no way an admission of responsibility.". Police determined that on Aug. 11, three students were sexually assaulted for about 20 minutesin a turf room, the release said. As Hinchey and others had shown, mob connections to illegal dumping were by no means limited to the landfills around Middletown. At the time, Raimist tells me, she was just another bored teenager, with dyed hair, a pair of battered Doc Martens, and an interest in photography. The documentary is a mix of handheld footage, produced during various acts of trespass at the countys landfills, and formal, on-camera interviews with politicians and retired landfill workers, often staged in the high schools recording studio.