Central Bucks terminates special education director amid abuse allegations

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At a board meeting Thursday night, Central Bucks School District voted to terminate Alyssa Wright, the former director of special education and pupil services. The board also voted to approve a separation agreement with an employee identified by just their employee number, 16177.

The move comes after two days of hearings on termination proceedings for Superintendent Steven Yanni and David Heineman, principal of Jamison Elementary School, where students in an autism support classroom were allegedly abused at the hands of a teacher and special education assistant.

Board member James Pepper, whose son was among the students allegedly abused, abstained from voting on both decisions, but spoke out ahead of both votes on the ongoing fallout from the abuse allegations.

“I have supported certain people that used to work for this district,” he said. “I did that in error, and part of that was a real need to believe that my son and the other children in that room were not so completely and utterly failed, but they were. They were completely and utterly failed, and I always go back to, not just by the employees of this district, but also by law enforcement and the District Attorney’s Office.”

Pepper proceeded to read parts of an email attachment detailing initial reports of the alleged abuse in November 2024 that he said were not immediately acted on by administrators.

“All of this has been incredibly painful,” he said. “Not just for me and my wife and my family, but for many people in this district, people that were lied to, people whose lives have been upended.”

According to The Bucks County Courier Times, Yanni defended his actions in Wednesday’s hearing, saying he reported suspected abuse to ChildLine, the state child protective services hotline, as soon as he learned of it. He said he did not remember reading the attachment in the November email that contained notes from an administrator detailing a whistleblower’s reports of abuse, which was sent several days before he filed his report to ChildLine.

Board President Susan Gibson said at Thursday’s meeting that the district was not yet prepared to take action on Yanni and Heineman’s termination proceedings.

Yanni was placed on administrative leave in April, following the release of an investigative report from Disability Rights Pennsylvania. The report found the abuse allegations to be “credible and corroborated,” and that administrators’ reports of the suspected abuse to ChildLine were “incomplete and misleading.”