New Lincoln Park High School Administrator Is Out Days After Appointment Amid Scandals
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Just days after she was appointed following the ouster of the principal and assistant principal, the new leader at Lincoln Park High School is out.
Judith Gibbs was appointed after the Chicago Public Schools removed Lincoln Park Principal John Thuet and Assistant Principal Michelle Brumfield just this past Friday.
But she decided to leave on Wednesday, CPS said.
A letter to Lincoln Park parents from CPS Chief of Network 14 Laura LeMonde said Gibbs had decided to leave after "determining that she was not a good fit for LPHS."
But a CPS spokesman also confirmed that there is an allegation that involved improper contact with a student.
A parent who has a child at Lincoln Park sent CBS 2 a video that appears to show Gibbs grabbing the lower chin of a student.
In addition to the ouster of Thuet and Brumfield last week, the head coach of the boys' varsity basketball team at the school, 2001 N. Orchard St., was also suspended, because CPS said, "Allegations are serious and involve student misconduct and adult misconduct."
The boys' basketball team's season was also suspended.
During Christmas week at the Motor City Roundball Classic in the Detroit suburb of Mount Clemens, Michigan, the team won two of their three games. A week after the Detroit trip, the school's principal said the "overnight trip over winter break… was not a school-sponsored event" and the suspensions and ousters were announced.
But CPS launched four separate investigations altogether at Lincoln Park, with a scope that went beyond the boys' varsity basketball team. The matters under investigation include sexual misconduct within the athletics department. The investigators center around:
• Sexual misconduct, where administrators failed to follow reporting mandates;
• Retaliation, against witnesses and those filing complaints;
• Interference, in which CPS accused school leaders of withholding evidence, and;
• Misconduct where students were not protected.
