Lawmaker asks state AG to investigate LH school district policies
After sexual assault charges were filed against two Laurel Highlands High School teachers within a week, state Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa asked the state attorney general’s office to determine whether the district followed state mandatory reporting policies and properly investigated reports.
“Families in this community deserve to know whether all appropriate steps were taken to protect students and to respond to allegations when they arose,” she said in her letter to state Attorney General Dave Sunday.
Last week, social studies teacher Martin Gatti, 50, of Uniontown was charged with attempted institutional sexual assault after allegedly repeatedly asking a female student under 16 to kiss him this past January. During the course of the conversation, he asked her if they were going to “do it,” according to court documents.
Daniel Cervone, an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps instructor at the school, was charged Tuesday with institutional sexual assault. The 50-year-old Monongahela man allegedly met with a female student in his office numerous times in 2019 and 2020, where they frequently kissed and on one occasion had sex. He also allegedly showed the girl pornographic images on his cellphone.
At a special meeting Tuesday, the board suspended Cervone and fired Gatti.
Student-staff relationships had been known to be a concern in the district at least as far back as 2023, Grimm Krupa contended in a letter she sent to state prosecutors on Thursday.
That year, state police investigated allegations of misconduct against former teacher Ashley Thurby-Kolesar. She was eventually sentenced to probation for illegally recording video of a student who had asked her about help getting a better grade in her class, which she then sent to another student.
The state suspended her teaching certificate in September 2025.
“These circumstances — multiple cases within the same district, spanning several years, and involving a gap between alleged conduct and reporting — warrant careful, independent review,” Grimm Krupa said in a Facebook post Thursday. “The question is not only what occurred in each individual case, but whether all required safeguards and reporting obligations were consistently followed.”
Neither district Superintendent Dr. Jesse Wallace nor the attorney general’s office responded to requests for comment on Friday.
In a statement posted on the district’s website Thursday, Wallace said the district would require staff to undergo additional training focused on professional boundaries and reporting suspicious behavior. The district is also reviewing its reporting and screening processes for any gaps and to make sure the standards exceed the state’s.
“When you entrust your children to our schools, we do so under a bond of protection and safety,” Wallace said in the statement. “To see that bond broken by individuals is unacceptable. While we cannot change the actions of those individuals, please know that we are holding those staff members accountable for their actions. Laurel Highlands School District has amazing educators, and they will continue to protect and educate your children.”
Grimm Krupa asked Sunday to determine whether the district complied fully with Pennsylvania’s mandatory reporting laws; if prior complaints or signs of misconduct were properly documented, reported, and investigated; if other suspected abuse was properly reported; and whether other incidents, victims or patterns of conduct remain unidentified.