YATESVILLE \u2013 A superintendent who saw domestic-violence related charges dismissed against him last month may be making his return as head of Pittston Area schools.<\/p>\n
The Pittston Area Board of Education removed an anonymous employee, identified only by the employee code #040377, from administrative leave Tuesday and returned that employee to active status effective Wednesday. The school board first put employee #040377 on leave in October at what was then its first meeting after the arrest of Pittston Area Superintendent Kevin Booth on now dismissed simple assault and harassment charges.<\/p>\n
Pittston Area Assistant Superintendent John A. Haas, who has been assuming Booth\u2019s role at school board meetings since Booth\u2019s arrest, declined to comment on Booth\u2019s potential return to work after the school board meeting Tuesday. Haas has repeatedly declined to address Booth\u2019s status with the school district, describing the matter as a confidential personnel issue.<\/p>\n
A request for comment left with the Pittston Area superintendent\u2019s office Wednesday was not returned.<\/p>\n
Pittston police arrested Booth on Oct. 5 after he arrived at home and was alleged to have choked his wife. Police said Booth denied the allegation of domestic violence after having initially told law enforcement he had \u201cno idea\u201d what had happened. Booth, now 55, was subsequently arraigned on one charge of simple assault and one charge of harassment and released on $2,500 unsecured bail. He then secured admission into an inpatient treatment facility. (Pittston Area officials have declined to answer whether a school district health insurance policy paid for Booth\u2019s treatment.) The Pittston Area Board of Education voted Oct. 21 to put employee #040377 on paid administrative leave at its first meeting following the arrest with the leave retroactive from Oct. 14.<\/p>\n
A magistrate at Luzerne County Central Court dismissed the charges against Booth on March 3. The dismissal was pursuant to a statement to the court from Booth\u2019s wife, Jessica, in which she indicated she was no longer interested in pressing charges, as well as a statement from a Luzerne County assistant district attorney that indicated Kevin Booth had completed rehabilitation and anger-management programs. Jessica Booth filed for divorce from Kevin on Oct. 27 and had filed a temporary protection-from-abuse order against Kevin, though that order has since been withdrawn.<\/p>\n
The vote Tuesday to return employee #040377 to active status was 6-2. Pittston Area school board members Marissa Chiumento and Katherine Healey were the two members who voted against the employee\u2019s return. (Pittston Area Board of Education President Frank Serino was absent.) During the roll call, Chiumento said she was voting against the measure \u201conly because (she) didn\u2019t agree with the date proposed for the leave.\u201d She declined to explain her vote further after the meeting Tuesday. Healey declined comment when contacted Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"YATESVILLE \u2013 A superintendent who saw domestic-violence related charges dismissed against him last month may be making his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[227,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,181,4490],"class_list":{"0":"post-173179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-luzerne-county","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-top-stories-stt","17":"tag-yatesville"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}