Dad continues fight with UCF - Chadds Ford Live

Birmingham Township’s Chad Williams, a father of four, is continuing his fight with the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board and administration over the district’s COVID policies. Specifically, he’s challenging the legality of the district’s masking policy and has filed a formal complaint with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Chadds Ford Live contacted the school district’s attorney, Mark Fitzgerald for comment, but said he couldn’t comment because “the process involving [Superintendent of Schools] Dr. Sanville is extremely confidential."

Williams has filed complaints concerning the district’s actions over the last three years but said he’s not received any satisfactory response. His concern was whether the school district had legal authority to force masking of students when they returned to school after the lockdown.

That lack of response continued even after a state Supreme Court ruling in December of 2021 that said the state’s acting health secretary had exceeded her authority by issuing school mask mandates. The district continued to require masks into the spring of 2022.

(In 2022, Williams asked State Sen. Scott Martin, then chairman of the Senate Education Committee, to look into the matter. Martin said he was disappointed with the district’s response to his query and called the district “arrogant.” See that story here.)

Williams’ latest complaint has gotten attention from the Governor’s Office of General Counsel. On July 19, Assistant Counsel Jeffrey Fair wrote to William saying “…the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Office of Chief Counsel reviewed the educator misconduct complaint that you filed in regard to Dr. John Sanville, in which you alleged Dr. Sanville is violating the law in order to shield himself from transparency and accountability for his documented misconduct and violations of law. As explained more fully below, we have determined that the allegations in your complaint are legally sufficient to warrant professional discipline.”

The letter went on to say that if allegations are found to be true and warrant discipline, there could be further investigation.

“As part of our preliminary investigation, the law authorizes the Department to seek information from Dr. Sanville and from the current and former school entity in which the educator is or was employed. After completing our preliminary investigation, we will make a probable cause determination.”

Fair continued, saying the complaint would be dismissed if there was no probable cause for discipline. If probable cause is found, he said, there could be a complete investigation. He added that even if there is a finding of legal sufficiency, there is no guarantee the state would pursue formal charges.

The current complaint is 12 pages long, mostly legalese. In a separate email, however, Williams cited specifics.

He said the district violated the Child Protective Services Law by failing to report harm to children caused by the masking.

“The harm was reported in writing, by me and other parents, to John Sanville and other mandated reporters in the district. Parents also reported harm to children at a public meeting on Feb. 14, 2022. The district has destroyed (or refuses to produce) the video of that meeting. I have documents and other evidence showing the written reports of harm meeting the definition under the statute, which should have been reported to the Department of Human Services and were not, Williams said.

He alleges official oppression: “John Sanville is denying my right under school policy 906 (which is required by Pennsylvania law) to a “fair and impartial” investigation of my complaint into alleged misconduct and violations of law by him and the school district solicitor.”

Williams also alleges perjury: “John Sanville directed Joe Deady, the district’s open records officer, to submit an intentionally false affidavit in an official proceeding before the office of open records.”

He contends that the district has violated his civil rights to due process “by ignoring its own policies and refusing to conduct an investigation…In addition, enforcement of policies during the pandemic that the Supreme Court held were void ab initio, meaning the district never had the legal authority to enforce them. Those unlawful policies were enforced against my will on my children, and I gave the district notice at the time they were enforcing those policies that they were violating the law and harming my kids”

He then referred to the letter from Fair by saying “[T]he Governor’s Office of Chief Counsel stated in the letter that the allegations in my complaint warrant professional discipline. I have the evidence supporting each allegation. My complaint would have been dismissed if I did not allege facts supporting violations of law.”

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.