Plum Superintendent Resigning Amid Hostile Relations With School Board Members

Follow KDKA-TV: Facebook | Twitter

PLUM (KDKA) -- The man who was in charge of the Plum School District during the teacher-student sex scandal is stepping down.

Timothy Glasspool is proposing several options for his departure from the district and depending on what it decides, he could walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Plum Area School Board is facing a difficult and very costly decision. Last year, the board voted to retain Glasspool following the teacher-student sex scandal that embarrassed the district.

Glasspool announced he is resigning next month due to hostile relations with newly elected board members. As a result, he's offering the board several options to buy him out.

KDKA's news partners at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obtained a letter from Glasspool's attorney to the school board. He is offering to resign by Oct. 1 in exchange for a yearly salary of $157,000 plus benefits through June of 2018, over $12,000 for unpaid sick leave and $14,000 for unused vacation.

"He's saying, you know, in the way that the high school principal got out, he's saying, 'I'd like to be paid out for the rest of my year,'" Joe Tommarello, a former school board member, said.

Tommarello is referring the payoff for the former high school principal Ryan Kociela, who resigned in July.

If the board rejects that offer, Glasspool is offering a more expensive option. He would resign April 1, take a retirement package worth $438,000, which would include unused sick leave, benefits for him and his spouse for 22 years, and a $10,000 retirement incentive.

Tommarello says he resigned from the board after members refused to put the superintendent and high school principal on leave following the sex scandal.

Both were eventually put on leave after a grand jury report came out, but Tommarello says the principal and superintendent should have been fired based on the findings from the grand jury report.

"They turned a blind eye. They were helping their friends – the teachers caught having sex with students. They were protecting them. It was about protecting the name of the district," Tommarello said.

If the board rejects the buy-out, Glasspool could sue the district and maybe get even more money. The district will have a meeting to vote on his buy-out on Tuesday.