Delaware principal was indicted 7 months ago for raping student, but authorities never alerted public or families

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Teachers and other staffers at Alexis I. du Pont Middle School in Delaware received a vague and perplexing official email in September 2023 about Principal Tasha Oliver.

Oliver was on leave, the missive from district officials said, without detailing the nature of her departure or an expected return date.

Assistant Principal Christina Kaleese took over in an interim role, and this school year assumed the post on a permanent basis.

Oliver, who had been principal since 2020, never returned to A.I. Middle School, however.

Nor did officials with the Red Clay Consolidated School District ever notify teachers or parents about why she bolted so suddenly.

That account about Oliver’s abrupt departure 18 months ago and the silence since then was provided to WHYY News this week by an educator associated with Red Clay. The educator said employees have been wondering why Oliver, who has worked at all four district middle schools, left the grand stone facility on Wilmington’s affluent western outskirts without any explanation.

“What happened with that principal?’’ asked the educator, who requested anonymity because she feared retaliation for asking about a former high-ranking school leader’s business.

The answer, it turns out, has been sitting since August in a thin manila folder in the basement of the New Castle County Courthouse.

That’s where WHYY News found a 19-count felony indictment that charges Tasha Purnell — OIiver’s former name — with multiple rape and other sex crimes from 2010 through 2014 against a girl who was a minor.

The alleged victim, identified only by her initials in the indictment, was a student at Red Clay’s Stanton Middle School south of Wilmington, said Mat Marshall, spokesman for Attorney General Kathy Jennings. Oliver taught at Stanton from 2006 to 2016, district officials said.

Oliver later worked at Red Clay’s Skyline and H.B. du Pont middle schools before becoming A.I. Middle School’s principal in January 2020.

The indictment charges the former principal with:

• Five counts of sexual assault of a child by a person in the position of trust or authority
• One count of continuous sexual abuse of a child
• Three counts of third-degree rape
• 10 counts of fourth-degree rape.

The indictment doesn’t provide many details on Oliver’s alleged crimes, except that there was a single victim, that Oliver engaged in “penetration” and “intercourse” with her, and that the rape and abuse occurred over a four-year period that ended July 31, 2014.

State police would not release their own investigative report that does include specifics of Oliver’s alleged crimes. That report is not a public document under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Oliver, a 43-year-old Newark-area resident, has been free since her arrest in September on $205,000 secured bail. She faces a minimum of 57 years and up to life in prison if convicted of all charges. Oliver and her attorney, John Malik, did not respond to requests for comment about the charges.

A Superior Court trial before Judge Calvin Scott is scheduled for May.

‘Communications breakdowns’ prevented public disclosure’

The criminal charges against Oliver are the latest in a series of sexual abuse or child pornography charges lodged against Delaware educators in recent years.

For example, Brandywine School District therapist John Ervin Arnold, who had bogus advanced degrees, was charged last year with raping a 5-year-old relative. Last week, Arnold pleaded no contest to two second-degree rape counts.

In January, St. Anne’s Episcopal School principal Justin Lee Smith was charged with 25 counts of dealing in child pornography.

The arrests of Arnold, Smith and other educators have been announced in news releases, with school officials providing notices to parents and teachers.

By contrast, in the seven months since Oliver was indicted, law enforcement authorities never revealed publicly that a Delaware principal had been charged with rape and sexual abuse against a student. Nor has Red Clay, the state’s largest district, informed its northern Delaware school community.

The failure to disclose Oliver’s arrest astonished and baffled the Red Clay educator who inquired about her this week.

“It’s definitely strange that it was never out in the news since the arrest,” the educator told WHYY News after being informed about the criminal charges.

So why are the rape and sexual abuse charges against Oliver only becoming public with the publication of this story?

Marshall said “communication breakdowns” in his office prevented a press release from being issued about the charges. Marshall said the Attorney General’s Office also did not inform Red Clay officials about the arrest and charges against Oliver, who was still on the payroll when the indictment came down in August.

Attorney General Jennings had no comment on the debacle but Marshall said the failure by the Department of Justice lies with him — not Jennings or case prosecutor Nicholas Wynn. Marshall, who routinely goes the extra mile to provide information to reporters, was on family leave when Oliver was arrested and knew nothing about the charges until WHYY News notified him this week.

“I can sit here and make excuses for days for you,” Marshall said. “The bottom line here is DOJ should’ve sent out notification about it. I take responsibility for the fact that our system inside of our office didn’t provide for us to make notification more promptly. That’s not the way that the AG wants us to operate. It’s not normally the way that we do operate.”

In most cases, detectives present probable cause evidence, including a written affidavit, to a judge. If the judge signs an arrest warrant, then the cops take the suspect into custody, with the target or their attorney often notified first. Then the case is indicted and then moves to Superior Court for a resolution.

The Oliver case was different because she was first indicted by a grand jury after evidence presented by a prosecutor. Then she was taken into custody. That’s not the usual process but authorities sometimes indict a defendant first for a variety of reasons. Those include fast-tracking the case straight to Superior Court for a quicker resolution, or perhaps because authorities fear the suspect might flee and want to make a surprise arrest.

That scenario left it up to the Attorney General’s Office to notify the public but officials never did.

“What happened on our end is a series of communications breakdowns,” Marshall said. “We just didn’t have the right systems and supports in place. It’s something the public should have been notified about. It’s unintentional, but it’s important and it’s significant and we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

‘People have to put on their big boy pants and do their job’

While Red Clay administrators say they didn’t know details about the serious charges against their principal, state police detectives did inform the district that Oliver was under investigation in September 2023.

That led the district to place Oliver on paid administrative leave. She remained in that limbo status until September 2024, when Red Clay learned she had been arrested and fired her, district officials said.

Oliver was paid her full $142,000 salary in 2024, state payroll records show.

Superintendent Dorrell Green would not agree to be interviewed, and district spokeswoman Alva Mobley would not say how district officials learned about the arrest so soon after she was taken into custody.

But in response to inquiries by WHYY News, Mobley said in a statement that because Red Clay could not learn details about the case, they couldn’t inform staff and families.

“As indicated by the Department of Justice, the Red Clay Consolidated School District was not provided with any investigative information, nor were we made aware of the details surrounding this matter,” the Red Clay statement said. “Nor did the Department of Justice or any law enforcement agency previously issue a press release regarding this matter. Given this, Red Clay was not in a position to issue a statement regarding the charges.”

“We are deeply saddened by this situation and understand the concerns it may raise. While we remain committed to fostering a safe and supportive environment for our students and staff, we are disappointed that the district is being associated with circumstances over which we had no knowledge or control.”

During the seven months since the arrest, however, someone from Red Clay could have ventured down to the courthouse in Wilmington and looked up the case on public access terminals in the records office and requested and then reviewed the documents in the file folder that contained damning information about Oliver.

Purnima Montagne, immediate past president of the Delaware Parent Teacher Association, said it was a dereliction of duty by the Attorney General’s Office to not notify the public. She also faulted Red Clay for not doing more to find out why Oliver was arrested so district employees and families could be alerted.

“They are legal custodians of our children while they’re in school. That is no joke, right?” Montagne said. “And to now just kind of say, ‘Like, oh well, you know,’ it feels like they’re shrugging their shoulders.”

“Absolutely, they should have done more,” said Montagne, who speculated Red Clay officials “didn’t do more because then they might have to do something about it. It’s easier to say ‘I didn’t know’ than to find out and now have to actually do something about it. I know those are uncomfortable questions, but people have to put on their big boy pants and do their job.”

Britney Mumford, who runs the education advocacy nonprofit DelawareKidsCAN, said parents should not have to find out several months after the fact that an educator, especially a prominent one, was arrested for serious sex crimes against a student.

“It’s wild that the Department of Justice wasn’t doing their due diligence,” Mumford said. “It shouldn’t be on the public to find out. A parent shouldn’t have to wake up every morning and go to a search engine to see if anyone in their school district has been indicted for sexual assault of a minor.”

“It should be broadcast to the public so that folks have that information in their hands as quickly and as simply as possible. We really cannot afford to be having things slip through the cracks.”