PLUM, Pa. — It’s been a trying year for the Plum School District as a wave of teacher sex scandals has hit the district, and residents responded by voting a few new members on to the school board there.
Channel 11 spoke with one of the school board members who’s been there through the entire ordeal and said members are fractured on how to respond to the continuing scandal.
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Michelle Stepnick, a first-term school board member, said she was shocked when the allegations started coming in about inappropriate relationships between teachers and students.
“Never in my life did I think I’d be faced, especially in Plum borough, with that issue,” she said.
Teachers Jason Cooper, Joseph Ruggieri and Michael Cinfera are accused of having sex with students, while Drew Zoldak is charged with witness intimidation in connection to the case.
Caught in the middle of the arrests and ongoing investigation is a school board that’s been heavily criticized.
Stepnick said she wants people to know board members aren’t indifferent or tone deaf to the past year’s struggles in the district.
“I’m a mom before anything,” she said. “When I ran, I was a mom. That’s why I was there.”
Stepnick has also applauded the board’s efforts in adopting a student-teacher conduct policy and in launching a safe school committee.
WPXI
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