Retired Ligonier Valley teacher calls for investigation into handling of incident involving special needs student

A year and a half has passed since Linda O'Sullivan had a life-changing encounter with a student with special needs while working as an art teacher at Ligonier Valley High School.

The 60-year-old Ligonier County woman is now retired and is still recovering from facial, head and neck injuries she said she suffered from an attack by the student, but at least one school district administrator called it an accident.

O'Sullivan said the blame lies with the district, not the special needs student, for failing to take steps to protect other students and staff from the boy's violent behavior and failing to provide him with appropriate care.

“This student had no grudge against me,” O'Sullivan said of the Feb. 7, 2023, incident when the student punched her in the face. “In many ways, he is a bigger victim than I am. His needs were not met and he was a danger not only to himself, but to students and staff he had access to.”

“He was simply put in a life skills classroom with non-violent students.”

At this month's school board meeting and on social media, O'Sullivan called for an investigation into District School Superintendent Tim Kantor, accusing him of failing to respond to previous concerns about the student's behavior raised in September 2022. She also faulted Ed Moran, the district's director of education and special education.

O'Sullivan also accused Kantor of omitting the Feb. 7 incident from the Safe School student incident reports the district submitted to state authorities for the 2022-2023 school year, citing other inconsistencies in the reports.

She said she also learned that the district did not retain surveillance footage of her encounter with the student. O'Sullivan said she suffered a traumatic brain injury in the incident and cannot remember many details.

“This all took place in the lobby of the high school auditorium,” O'Sullivan said. “There are several cameras in that area.”

Kantor and Moran did not respond to messages seeking comment.

School Board Chairman Don Gilbert and recently appointed District Attorney Gary Matta said at the board meeting that they would investigate the allegations against O'Sullivan.

“I am sure that an attorney has previously looked into these matters and the board is not convinced at this time that there has been any wrongdoing here,” Matta said.

However, the board instructed Matta to review information related to O'Sullivan's concerns.

“If necessary, we will make appropriate changes,” Matta said. “If not, we will continue as before.”

He added: “The safety of our students is the most important thing we are concerned about.”

Gilbert said he joined the school board shortly before the Feb. 7, 2023, incident and had little information about it.

“I don't want you to think we are discrediting anything that happened or your concerns,” he told O'Sullivan. “If anything comes up in these reports that requires follow-up, I will ask the board to investigate it by any means necessary.”

“If something seems wrong, the appropriate authorities – be it the Department of Education, the district attorney, the local police or whoever – will be called in.”

“My doctors were stunned”

On Feb. 7, 2023, the high school's ceramics studio was not deemed a safe environment for the special needs student, so O'Sullivan said she prepared a cart of materials for him to use in a nearby hallway under the supervision of other staff members.

When an aide said she needed help in the hallway, O'Sullivan found another teacher holding the student.

“He had thrown materials from the cart onto the ground,” she said. “The student had bitten through his shirt and was hurting himself.”

O'Sullivan cannot remember many other details of the incident.

“A teacher saw me crying and called for help,” she said. “I don't remember that. My first memory is that I was sitting in the ambulance and a man said they were going to call my husband.”

A district workers' compensation claim report for 2022-2023 mentions the Feb. 7 incident, noting that a student punched O'Sullivan in the face, but listing only a black and bruised left eye as the resulting injury.

Actually, the right side of her face was injured, said O'Sullivan, but she herself suffered much more serious injuries.

“My doctors were shocked at the extent of my injuries,” she said. She believes her head may have hit a wall after her face was hit.

She has had surgery on her jaw and is facing further operations.

“They cut out part of my right lower jaw and put in a titanium jaw joint,” she said. “I have chronic jaw pain and have to be careful about what I eat when chewing.”

“I have partial hearing loss in my right ear and some torn ligaments in my neck that are slowly improving with therapy. I have balance problems and some learning difficulties and am mentally exhausted. I hope things will slowly get better.”

O'Sullivan claims the incident was not properly reported or investigated by local police.

Ligonier Valley Police Chief Michael Matrunics said one of his officers, who works as the district's school resource officer, was on the high school grounds at the time and called for help while a rescue team tended to O'Sullivan.

He said the incident has been turned over to the Westmoreland County District Attorney's Office for investigation. O'Sullivan said she was interviewed by a county detective but was dismayed to learn there was no surveillance footage.

Spokeswoman Melanie Jones confirmed that prosecutors had launched an investigation and no charges had been filed.

“A complete failure”

O'Sullivan said the student returned to high school the day after his injury and she learned he was eventually sent to a private school the following August.

“The very next day, without any change in rules or protocol, this student had free access to all students and all staff at the high school,” she said. “The student cannot be held accountable in any way. The big problem is a complete failure of the school district administration.”

Sheila Lundquist of Ligonier confirmed that she brought her concerns about the same special needs student to the school's attention after working as a substitute teacher in his life skills classroom for several days in September 2022. TribLive was provided with a copy of her email exchange with the school's administration.

“It was simply not an appropriate and safe placement,” Lundquist said of the student. “I noticed that in the first few hours I worked with him.”

Lundquist said the student punched her several times in the chest and once in the face.

“He slapped me on the upper cheekbone, eye and the side of my head,” she said in her email to administration.

On one occasion, the student hit a classmate on the back of the head. Another time, he threw several books, one of which hit another student on the back of the head.

An emailed response from Kantor to Lundquist indicated that school administrators were aware of the classroom situation.

“I didn’t want to go back to life skills classes because it just wasn’t safe,” Lundquist said.

O'Sullivan provided a copy of her own email conversation with district administration related to the February 7, 2023, incident. In it, she criticized Kantor and Moran and called for a change in the way students with special needs are treated.

In an email response to O'Sullivan, Moran wrote that he was “sorry that the accident occurred with the student” but denied that the student's needs had not been met. He said “accommodations, training and counseling” had taken place.

O'Sullivan said she was never trained to deal with a violent student.

“People tend to believe that there are these magical placements for children with high needs,” Moran wrote. “Unfortunately, that's just not true.”

He added: “I think it's important to remember that this accident was not malicious. It was not premeditated or calculated. It was truly an expression of disability.”

“The student in question is a child. The best place to educate a child is with peers and with people who care about him and know him.”

No incentive for change

While her application for disability compensation is still pending, O'Sullivan said recovering from her 2023 injuries has affected her post-retirement work plans – including her interest in teaching at a college, working with at-risk youth at a local nonprofit, and restoring and remodeling homes.

Attorney Adam Quatrini, who is representing O'Sullivan in her workers' compensation case, said she has no legal recourse to pursue civil action against the district.

“That's one of the pitfalls of the Workers' Compensation Act,” Quatrini said. Since you can't demand compensation from an employer for pain and suffering, “there's no incentive to change anything,” he said.

“Linda's greatest concern is that these (students with special needs) are not receiving the appropriate support they need and that other students and teachers are being subjected to attacks that obviously cannot be tolerated.”

O'Sullivan said she decided to make her concerns about Ligonier Valley public because “I felt like I wasn't making any progress with it. No changes were being made.”

“I don’t want anything worse to happen to another employee, let alone a student.”