Case against teacher, aide accused of assaulting Greensburg Salem students heads to county court

The criminal cases against two women accused of assaulting three students at a Greensburg Salem elementary school will proceed to Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court, and more people could be charged, a detective said Thursday at a hearing.

Prosecutors suggested two witnesses who testified during preliminary hearings for Brooke A. Stanko, 34, of Derry Township and Teri Kepchia, 58, of Hempfield could also be facing charges in connection with the incidents reported at Robert F. Niceley Elementary School. Both of those witnesses appeared with their own legal representation.

“This isn’t quite over yet,” Detective Sgt. Justin Scalzo said after the hearing. “There is going to be more that comes available here in the near future. Greensburg Police Department is working closely with the District Attorney’s Office, and, once we’ve decided what our next move is, people will be aware.”

Kepchia and Stanko were arrested in December. Stanko was a teacher, and Kepchia was an aide in the same special needs classroom. They are accused of spraying lemon juice and soap into the mouth of one child and restraining that child and two others with soundproofing mats — 6 feet long by 4 feet high — on multiple occasions in September and October, according to testimony. The children involved were 8, 7 and 6, police said.

Senior District Judge Mark Bilik said he wrestled with the decision until hearing testimony from the last two witnesses — Scalzo and Niceley Principal Christopher Thomas.

“This never gets easy, even after 32 years,” Bilik said. “Just when you think you heard it all, you have a case like this.”

Bilik listened to evidence from seven witnesses over three hours in a standing-room-only courtroom.

Two parents testified that their children, who were students in the classroom where Stanko and Kepchia worked, began acting differently a few weeks into the school year. One got violent when it was time to go to school and started vomiting regularly.

Another child didn’t want to leave the house.

“He started to fight about going to school every morning,” a mother testified.

TribLive is not identifying the women to protect the identity of the children.

Three witnesses who worked as aides employed by ESS in the same classroom as Stanko and Kepchia testified that they saw the women wrap those two children plus a third with soundproofing mats on dozens of occasions, sometimes so tightly the kids could not move their arms. There were typically two teachers and three aides in the classroom of five to eight students.

“It just didn’t sit right with me. There was just a pit in my stomach that this shouldn’t be happening,” testified Amber Stouffer, an ESS aide at the time of the alleged assaults.

When asked why she felt that way by Assistant District Attorney Anthony Iannamorelli, Stouffer responded, “Because it’s not something I would do to my own kid.”

Derek Hines, another ESS aide at the time of the alleged assaults, said he took a photograph of the soundproofing mats because using them to corral the students didn’t seem right to him.

He and Amanda Lehman testified that they saw the spray bottle being used on one of the children. Lehman said she was first told the bottle contained lemon juice, but later was switched to a soapy mixture, which she saw sprayed into the child’s mouth five to six times after spitting incidents, according to testimony.

“He would spit, and then they would get the spray bottle,” Lehman said.

The accusations came to light when a teacher at another school made a ChildLine report Oct. 26, police said. During a meeting with school staff, Stanko and Kepchia admitted to spraying the child’s mouth, Thomas testified. All of the workers involved have been removed from the classroom.

Police seized a green spray bottle from the classroom that had Kepchia’s name written on it. Scalzo said the mixture in it is being compared at a lab to soap in a dispenser in the classroom. The ChildLine report only referenced one child being involved, but Scalzo said the other two were identified during the investigation.

Kepchia’s attorney Tim Andrews and Stanko’s attorney Brian Aston argued the actions did not rise to the level of a criminal offense.

“It wasn’t their intent to cause (the students) any injury,” Andrews said.

After the hearing, he said he’s looking into the possibility of securing expert testimony related to de-escalation techniques for children with special needs.

“I think it’s easy for people out in the public to think that this is some horrible crime,” Andrews said. “I think both of these defendants were doing what they felt should be done to try to de-escalate the situation, protect both the children they were working with and the children in the school, as well as the teachers. Unfortunately, it may have been such that it wasn’t the best idea, but I don’t believe at all it’s criminal. And we’re very hopeful a jury will agree with us.”

Attorney Jonathan Steele, who specializes in special education regulations, said after the hearing that state law forbids the use of “aversive techniques” when working with students. He said he believes soapy water and lemon juice would fall under the aversive technique category. He is working with the family of one of the children.

Stanko and Kepchia are free on $50,000 unsecured bail on charges of conspiracy, child endangerment, false imprisonment, simple assault and failure to report.

Stanko was hired by Greensburg Salem School District in 2022. She is in the confidential disciplinary process. Kepchia resigned from the district this month. She was hired by the district in 2009.