Leah Mulhearn, president of the Cheltenham School District Board of School Directors, issued a memo to district families stating that Dr. Brian Scriven informed the board’s leadership today that he has resigned as superintendent, effective immediately.
In his letter of resignation, Dr. Scriven cited the events of the last year that “tested our community in ways none of us anticipated,” and said that “the district is best served by a fresh start under new leadership.”
“The Board has accepted Dr. Scriven’s resignation, and we thank him for his dedicated service to Cheltenham public schools,” Mulhearn wrote.
Pending the formal approval of the Board at its next meeting, Joshua Sweigard, the Director of Business Services, has been named acting superintendent, Mulhearn wrote.
“Mr. Sweigard is a skilled and experienced member of the district’s central administration, and we are confident that he is the best choice to lead the district until the search for an interim superintendent is completed,” she wrote.
After spending nearly three decades at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County Public Schools, Dr. Scriven, a 1983 graduate of Cheltenham High School, returned home in October 2021 to assume the role of superintendent.
He told Glenside Local in August 2023 that his return had been his most satisfying professional moment.
“I was an average academic student, and to have an opportunity to come back as the superintendent of a district from which I graduated and which laid the foundation for who I am, that’s nice,” he said.
Fast-forward to October 2025, and Dr. Scriven found himself speaking to families about a spate of security breaches, including a 19-year-old graduate of Cheltenham High School who entered the school on Wednesday, October 8 without permission and in possession of an airsoft Mac-10 machine gun. He was also behind a bomb threat made at the Elkins Park School on April 22.
A homeless man stayed overnight in a closet at the Cheltenham School District Administration Building on September 25.
“We have to assess what our current state is. If we have breakdowns, when are those breakdowns? Identifying the root causes and then figuring out how we can address it,” he said at the time.
The security breakdowns continued. In February, a single unspent .45 caliber bullet was found in a boys’ restroom at the high school.
In May, the school board issued a notice to the community last week regarding concerns around safety and student conduct. The notice was preempted by a private meeting in late April centered around reports of violent and inappropriate behavior, some of which involved students attacking teachers and other children.
“We will get an actionable outline of what our immediate next steps are by Monday,” Dr. Scriven told 6ABC. “I was slow to respond, I do have to own that, and rectify that immediately. That’s my immediate work, showing them that I heard them and this is what we’re going to do to address it.”
Last but not least among the controversies—and what may have very well have been Dr. Scriven’s coup de grâce—were the charges filed against numerous Cheltenham High School football players and coaches following an external hazing investigation.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday that parents of Cheltenham High School football players—as well as some of the players themselves—warned the school district about former head coach Terence Tolbert’s alleged allowance of bullying in his prior coaching job at Abington Senior High School. You can read our summary here.
Dr. Scriven’s letter of resignation is below:
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Photo: CSD