Delaware school district suspends 4 officials for mishandling complaints about therapist now charged with child rape

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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Four Brandywine School District administrators have been put on paid leave for allegedly mishandling complaints about the credentials and behavior of a school trauma therapist who was charged last month with raping a 5-year-old family member.

The disciplinary moves stem from concerns about John Ervin Arnold that a psychologist at Nemours Children’s Hospital near Wilmington had previously shared with officials at the district and Lombardy Elementary School, where Arnold had a $102,000-a-year post.

Arnold was arrested July 10, and a subsequent WHYY News story revealed that Arnold had bogus master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology that the state Department of Education had erroneously validated in July 2022. The state certification allowed Arnold to be paid several thousand more dollars a year, retroactive to his October 2021 hiring date.

The state — which learned from WHYY News that Arnold had submitted fake transcripts from Ohio University, which he never attended — is now investigating how that occurred, and two lawmakers are calling for a review of the credentialing process itself.

Brandywine Superintendent Lisa Lawson, who was promoted from top deputy on July 1, said last month she was disturbed that state and district officials were so easily bamboozled by Arnold, who had previously worked as a therapist but had no license to practice psychology in either Delaware or Florida.

Now Lawson says a separate district investigation, which is still underway, has found that serious mistakes were made after Nemours pediatric psychologist Zachary Radcliffe alerted the district about Arnold.

“We have found that there were internal missteps and there was a failure to elevate concerns to our human resources department,” Lawson said during an interview this week.

Lawson said the investigation, conducted by an outside attorney, could be wrapped up this month, and the final disciplinary recommendations would be presented to the Brandywine school board. Lawson did not identify the employees who are currently on paid administrative leave.

Radcliff and Nemours would not comment, but Lawson gave this account:

In late April, about three months before New Castle County police arrested Arnold for first- and second-degree rape and other charges, Radcliffe reached out to Brandywine after he and associates had dealt with Arnold about a Lombardy student the hospital was treating for autism.

At Lombardy and previously Mount Pleasant Elementary School, Arnold has counseled and provided support for students who have experienced trauma or have other behavioral or emotional problems.

While Arnold was not hired as a school psychologist, but rather as an emotional support therapist who did not need to be licensed, Lawson said Arnold “completely snowed” and “brainwashed’’ other Brandywine officials, including therapists, about his qualifications.

However, Arnold’s claims of being a trained psychologist with the proper educational pedigree began unraveling this spring.

During a meeting with a Nemours intern about the child and his Individualized Education Program, Arnold had been confrontational and accused Nemours of “not diagnosing the child properly,’’ Lawson said.

“There was a back-and-forth. Mr. Arnold believed that the child had a mood disorder, and apparently, Mr. Arnold had made inappropriate remarks,” Lawson said. “That caused Radcliffe to reach out to [Lombardy principal Michael McDermott] to say this is the behavior of your employee.”

McDermott informed Nemours that Arnold “will no longer be engaging with you as an organization,’’ Lawson said.

McDermott did not respond to a request by WHYY News for comment.

John Ervin Arnold is ‘not who he says he is’

Radcliff also began researching Arnold’s background, found he wasn’t licensed to practice psychology in Delaware, and followed up with an email to four unidentified Brandywine administrators questioning his qualifications, training and credentials, Lawson said.

Lawson said the essence of Radcliff’s email about Arnold was that “he’s not who he says he is’’ and that Nemours was “elevating this complaint” to Brandywine so district officials could review and possibly take action.

Yet no one alerted the district’s human resources office or other top administrators, including then-Superintendent Lincoln Hohler and herself, Lawson said.

Lawson described being in “major shock’’ upon learning about the Nemours complaint this month — several days after Arnold’s arrest and detainment at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution in Wilmington on $1.05 million cash bail. At the time, Arnold was handling summer school counseling duties at Claymont Elementary School.

“When I learned that we could have had [Arnold] handled three months before’’ he was arrested, “you can imagine how upset we all were, and we are owning it to our community,’’ she said.

Lawson said she plans to address the school board later this month, “and we are going to work very hard to ensure that this never happens again.”

Beyond disciplinary action for administrators, “we will be working to strengthen our reporting mechanisms in-house with all staff,’’ she said. “We are owning this internal mistake and non-elevation of a serious concern.”

Lawson said that during his nearly three years at Brandywine, Arnold counseled about two dozen students and said the district had not received any information that he might have sexually or physically abused any of them.

Lawson said that the district is also committed to providing outside counseling to all of the students with whom Arnold interacted.

“We have plans in place for every single family that was quote-unquote, ‘treated’ by this unlicensed professional,’’ she said.

Lawmakers seek review of educator credentialing process

While Brandywine is completing its own probe and deciding what action to take, two state lawmakers are calling on the Department of Education to investigate more than just how Arnold’s fake degrees were erroneously verified.

Sen. Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn, a Republican who serves on the chamber’s Education Committee, said the story by WHYY News led him to urge state Education Secretary Mark Holodick to conduct a “thorough audit of the credential verification process.”

“The reported case highlights a significant [failure of] oversight in the credential verification process, which not only endangers our children but also erodes public trust in our education and child welfare systems,” said Pettyjohn, who represents the Georgetown area of Sussex County.

Pettyjohn urged Holodick to implement more stringent checks where necessary, to adopt new verification technologies, increase the frequency of audits, and enhance collaboration with schools and trade groups to confirm credentials.

“It is crucial that we take immediate and decisive action,” Pettyjohn said. “Our children deserve to be protected by qualified professionals who have been thoroughly vetted.”

State Rep. Madison Wilson-Anton, a Democrat representing the Bear area, seconded  Pettyjohn’s call for a systemic review.

“I’m definitely disturbed that he was able to land the job that he did with a position of trust with children in our state,” Wilson-Anton said about Arnold and the state’s certification of the fake degrees.

“That’s concerning to me as a legislator but also just as a community member. So I will be looking to see where the investigation goes and how we’re going to address credentials moving forward.”