The former superintendent of the Abington Heights School District was named to leadership positions at The Wright Center following a controversial period leading a Lehigh Valley school district.<\/p>\n
Center officials announced last week Michael Mahon\u2019s appointment as vice president of academic affairs and associate designated institutional official for The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education.<\/p>\n
He oversees the educational experience of medical residents and fellows, and supervises graduate medical education staff in the roles. Mahon led Abington Heights for nearly 17 years before becoming superintendent of the Southern Lehigh School District in late 2021. The South Scranton native, who resides in Clarks Summit, began his career in education as a science teacher in 1990.<\/p>\n
Mahon\u2019s appointment to the new roles at The Wright Center follows a difficult year as Southern Lehigh\u2019s superintendent.<\/p>\n
He was placed on administrative leave earlier this year, action that came days after the then-president of the district\u2019s Board of Education criticized Mahon for what she said was \u201cpoor leadership\u201d and \u201cintentional miscommunication,\u201d while other members defended him and turned the criticism on the then-president, Emily Gehman. Mahon disagreed with Gehman\u2019s statements at a February board meeting.<\/p>\n
Officials did not give a reason for placing him on leave.<\/p>\n
The board confronted several sets of concerns related to Mahon\u2019s performance as superintendent, including an employee\u2019s complaints of discrimination, hostile work environment and retaliation, and the glitch-filled rollout of a student information system, according to a story by the Morning Call of Allentown.<\/p>\n
His five-month paid administrative leave ended over the summer, when the board approved separation agreements with Mahon. The agreements included a payout with $110,000 to settle \u201cmutual claims against each other that could lead to litigation\u201d and another $135,000 in remaining salary and vacation days. Mahon\u2019s appointment as Southern Lehigh\u2019s superintendent ran through June 30, 2026.<\/p>\n
The release of claims also included $25,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees for Mahon\u2019s lawyers and states that all disciplinary or investigatory documents will be removed from his personnel file.<\/p>\n
An employment reference and letter of recommendation is included in the separation agreement. The letter credits Mahon with moving the district from structural deficits to surpluses, praises a literacy initiative and notes the expansion of dual enrollment offerings.<\/p>\n
The letter of recommendation does not detail any allegations against Mahon, only stating that, \u201cin February 2025, certain allegations were raised concerning the Superintendent\u2019s performance.\u201d It also states, \u201cfollowing a comprehensive investigation conducted by independent legal counsel, all allegations were determined to be unfounded, and Dr. Mahon was fully cleared of any wrongdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to comment on whether The Wright Center was aware of the allegations against Mahon and if you have any concerns about them, spokesman Paul Krzywicki said in an email, \u201cThe Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education does not comment on personnel matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Efforts to reach Mahon for comment were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
Center officials said in a news release Mahon will provide \u201cadministrative and programmatic leadership across all educational activities, partnerships and new educational initiatives\u201d in his new roles.<\/p>\n
The Morning Call of Allentown contributed to this report\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former superintendent of the Abington Heights School District was named to leadership positions at The Wright Center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-2544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-lackawanna-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-scranton","13":"tag-scranton-headlines","14":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544","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=2544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}