Former executive charged in abuse case

Tiffany Jane Nichols failed to fully report claims, complaint alleges

The former executive director of The Malvern School’s facility in Westtown was charged Tuesday with failing to properly report accounts of child abuse at the school involving three young children who were enrolled at the high-end child care center.

It is believed to be one among the few times that Chester County authorities have filed criminal charges for failure to report against a person who is classified as a mandated reporter under the state law that was enhanced following the scandal involving Penn State and former football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Tiffany Jane Nichols, who left her position at the school in early November in a move described by officials there as a “change in leadership,” appeared before magisterial District Judge Martin Goch of West Goshen for an arraignment on felony charges of endangering the welfare of children and failure to report of refer stemming from multiple instances of physical abuse of three children, ages 14, 15 and 16 months.

Nichols was accompanied by her defense attorney, Joseph Lesniak of Media, a former Delaware County prosecutor. He declined to comment on the charges against her following the brief proceeding. Nichols did not address the accusations in her appearance before Goch.

According to a criminal complaint filed by Detective Michael Meiswich of the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department (WEGO), the charges concern Nichols’ actions following report of the abuse on the three toddlers allegedly committed by a teacher in the First Step age class at the school, which was opened in early 2021.

The complaint alleges that Nichols was told of the incidents by three separate witnesses to the events, yet failed to report the matter to ChildLine, the reporting agency for child abuse complaints in the state Department of Human Services, in a timely fashion.

The teacher, Victoria Aronson, was allowed to remain employed by the school for a period of time despite the accusations of abuse, and continued to work in classrooms at the school. Aronson was arrested by WEGO in late October and charged with aggravated assault of a child less than 6 and harassment. She is awaiting a preliminary hearing next month.

“This case clearly demonstrates the failure of Nichols to report, stop, and allow a pattern of child abuse by one of her teachers to continue at her school,” Meiswich said in his complaint. “Nichols’ failure to act allowed physical abuse to continue with children who are too young to verbally describe their pain and suffering caused by the actions of one of her teachers at the school. (It also) prevented parents from obtaining medical attention and having their children medically evaluated for current and potential injuries.”

District Attorney Deb Ryan, who supervised child abuse cases for the county before her election, called the matter “astonishing criminal behavior (that) will never be tolerated.

“As the executive director and a mandated reporter, it was the legal and moral duty of Tiffany Nichols to ensure the safety and care of all children at The Malvern School,” she wrote in a release announcing the charges. “It is unconscionable that the defendant failed to protect these innocent, nonverbal, and defenseless young children. By not immediately notifying ChildlLine, authorities, and the parents about her employee’s actions, she allowed abuse to continue.”

Although reports of child abuse have increased across the state and county in the wake of the new reporting requirements, it appears that relatively few persons who are classified as mandated reporters — nurses, school teachers, child welfare workers, doctors, etc. — have been charged under the law statewide.

In June, Allentown Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach failed to report suspected child abuse when she was a youth social worker, instead dropping a teenaged boy off at a crimeridden homeless encampment where he was solicited for sex, the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office alleged in its case against her.

Gerlach faces the same charges — endangering the welfare of children and failing to report or refer the information in violation of the Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law — that Nichols does, although Nichols is charged with felonies because of the severity of the charges against Aronson.

An attorney representing the parents of the three children involved commented on the charges, thanking authorities for taking a look at what happened.

“Childcare decisions are based upon trust,” said Chad Maloney, with the firm of Goldberg, Goldberg and Maloney of West Chester. “Every day, parents entrust daycare schools with the safety of their children. If something goes wrong, parents trust these facilities to follow the law. What happened at the Malvern School is unacceptable.

“We applaud the Chester County District Attorney’s office and the Westtown-East Goshen Police Department for their investigation into this matter,” Maloney said. “We hope these charges send a message to all individuals who work with children that mandatory reporting of child abuse is, in fact, mandatory. These toddlers and their families deserved better.”

According to Meiswich’s complaint, the alleged abuse of the three children — identified as victim E, age 15 months; victim S, age 16 months; and victim J, age 14 months — took place on Sept. 29 and 30 at the school. One of the children reportedly suffered a severe bruise on their back and a scratch near their eye.

In one instance, victim “S” was on the floor in the school’s First Step room, which is for children between the ages of 12 months to 18 months, when they began crying. The witness said they saw Aronson pick “S” up and slam them onto a changing table, saying, “You need to stop crying” in an angry voice. She was holding the child down on the table so forcefully that her hand “was turning purple,” the complaint states.

Immediately after that, the witness said she saw Aronson use the same actions and force on victim “E,” slamming them on the ground next to “S.” When they both started crying, she allegedly said, “You two can (expletive) scream at each other. I’m tired of hearing it.”

The witness also said they saw Aronson hold “E” in a headlock with their body dangling. The child hit their head on a door while Aronson was closing it. Another witness said that they saw Aronson bring victim “J” out to a playground and slammed them on the ground in a sitting position. The child began to cry.

The three witnesses — identified in the complaint as Emily Fishman, Brianna Worthington, and Aimee Donnelly — each brought the incidents to Nichols’ attention after seeing them, according to Meiswich.

Fishman told the detective that she met with Nichols on Sept. 28, before the alleged abuse took place, and express concerns she had about Aronson. The teacher was no longer playing with her students, was impatient with them, and was inattentive to their needs.

On Sept. 29, she went to Nichols in the afternoon to report the abuse she said she saw Aronson engage in — telling her that she saw Aronson throw victim E on a changing table and use unreasonable force on victim S. She said Nichols told her, “Okay. I will look into this.”

But the detective said that Nichols did not make an immediate report of the allegations to ChildLine, did not tell the parents of the children until Oct. 7, when the WEGO investigation had begun, did not remove Aronson from the classroom, and allowed her to continue to have access to children in the school.

WEGO was contacted about the abuse claims by the Chester County Child Abuse Unit on Oct. 7. But when Meiswich went to the school to begin his investigation he was told he was “Not permitted to speak with the witnesses at the present time,” according to the complaint. He was told by an unidentified representative of the school to return five days later, on Oct. 12, to interview witnesses, including Fishman, Worthington, and Donnelly.

Worthington told him that she had reported the abuse of the three children to Nichols in an email she sent on Sept. 30. She then met with Nichols about her accusations, but Meiswich said again that Nichols made no report of the information to ChildLine, to notify the parents, or to remove Aronson from her classroom.

Worthington told Meiswich she had sent the email to Nichols because she was to document in writing the abuse that she saw occurring.

The complaint alleges that Nichols did not contact ChildLine until Oct. 1, and that her report failed to fully describe the level and pattern of the abuse that the teachers witnessed. As a result, the report was not shared with the proper authorities for six days, instead going to the state Department of Education’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning.

Officials there reportedly recognized the serious nature of the allegations and referred the matter to law enforcement officials in the county.

Summarizing the case, Meiswich said that Nichols as the school’s executive director had a position of care and trust at the school, which she violated “by allowing the physical abuse (of the three victims) to continue,” after she was notified on Sept. 29, and by failing to make an appropriate report to ChildLine until Oct. 1.

Attempts to reach a representative of The Malvern School were not immediately successful Tuesday. Nichols, 39, of Kennett Square, is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing before Goch on Jan. 12. She was replaced at the school by longtime school administrator Leslie Fuller, who previously worked at the company’s King of Prussia location.