Wallingford-Swarthmore has approved a $330,000 separation agreement with its superintendent

The Wallingford-Swarthmore school board on Thursday approved a $330,000 separation agreement with Superintendent Wagner Marseille, who had faced mounting criticism from parents for his management style.

The agreement, which includes a $300,000 lump sum payment and a $30,000 contribution to Marseille’s retirement plan, adheres to Pennsylvania law governing superintendent payouts, according to the district’s solicitor. The law says superintendents leaving with less than two years left on their contracts — Marseille’s contract was to expire June 30, 2026 — can’t receive more than half what they would have been owed had they worked the rest of their contracts, said the solicitor, Kyle Berman.

Marseille’s salary last year was $248,000.

The board also hired as an interim superintendent James Scanlon, a retired West Chester superintendent who has recently served in a number of temporary district leadership positions, including as acting superintendent in Central Bucks. Wallingford-Swarthmore will pay a staffing agency representing Scanlon a per-diem fee of $1,540, under an agreement approved Thursday.

With the new school year starting, “we felt it was important to move forward quickly,” board president Kevin Henry said at the start of Thursday’s school board meeting. He said that given Scanlon’s experience, “we believe he’ll provide the stability we need at this time.”

» READ MORE: Wallingford-Swarthmore’s superintendent is leaving, after accusations of ‘tyrannical’ management style

The leadership changes follow a tumultuous month for the well-ranked school district, after criticism of Marseille erupted during a July 22 school board meeting. Parents alleged that Marseille had mistreated and alienated staff, resulting in the departures of a series of administrators and a crisis in teacher morale. (Henry said Thursday that the board was working to resolve an impasse over a teachers’ contract.)

Marseille — who attributed the criticism to how quickly he had pushed to make changes in the district since taking over in 2021 — was not present Thursday. A district spokesperson said earlier this week that she was unable to reach him.

Henry said Thursday that Marseille had dedicated “a significant amount of time, energy and expertise to the district,” and thanked him for his work.

Under the separation agreement — which Berman said was being negotiated until it became public Thursday afternoon — the district and Marseille issued a joint statement that said they had “mutually agreed to amicably end their contractual agreement.”

Marseille “has led and implemented significant changes in the district that have positively impacted all of our students’ academic growth, achievement, and support,” the statement said, describing the number of programs and initiatives led by Marseille as “too numerous to count.”

The statement credited Marseille with facilitating audits and a “vision of excellence” that guided the district’s strategic plan. “Dr. Marseille’s changes will help make and maintain WSSD as a top-performing district for all students and staff,” it said.

The agreement also requires that Wallingford-Swarthmore post a statement on its website saying Marseille met performance standards and earned a proficient rating on his annual evaluation in 2023-24.

A number of parents, including at Thursday’s board meeting, had questioned what Marseille’s performance standards were and how the district was evaluating him, saying they could not find them on the district’s website.

Some residents pressed the board Thursday for transparency going forward, including during the search for a permanent superintendent; Henry said the search process would involve student, faculty and community input.

One parent, Dina Stonberg, spoke in support of Marseille, telling the board that as the parent of a Black daughter and leader in the local NAACP, she was aware of numerous incidents of racism in Wallingford-Swarthmore schools that she alleged had been inadequately addressed by district staff.

But Black families “felt safer with Dr. Marseille around,” she said; the superintendent is also Black.

Stonberg said that in “a community of people who purport to be good white people,” there appeared to be a difference between “things we have swallowed about white people in leadership” and “things we are saying about a person of color.”

The lone vote on the board against Thursday’s actions was Nannette Whitsett, who opposed both Marseille’s separation agreement and the agreement to hire Scanlon. Of her vote against Scanlon’s agreement, Whitsett said she was “a little concerned about the speed in which this decision was made.”