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Cheltenham High School varsity football families repeatedly warned district officials about allegations that former head coach Terence Tolbert allowed bullying to fester in his previous coaching position at Abington Senior High School, parents say.

Tolbert, along with three other Cheltenham coaches, was charged last week with endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy after a 15-year-old player was allegedly assaulted in the football team’s locker room by teammates twice last year. Six players were also charged. The assaults have led to the cancellation of two football seasons.

Both the district and a Montgomery County grand jury found that inadequate supervision played a role in the assaults. The district also found coaching staff displayed “a failure to prioritize student safety.”

Tolbert and the other coaches are no longer with the district. Tolbert has declined to comment on the matter, and he and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

‘We protested and pleaded’

In the two months leading up to Tolbert’s hiring in June 2025, Cheltenham football families urged district officials to reconsider Tolbert’s hiring in numerous private conversations and public meetings, parents said in interviews this week.

“We protested and pleaded,” said Naim Ferguson, father of Cheltenham quarterback Kendall Jackson during Cheltenham’s last season. “We didn’t think the people they were putting in place were adequate to handle the kids.”

Parents went to the principal, Benjamin Hammond, and vice principal Samuel Sheridan, who is also the athletic director, emails between the officials and football parents show.

A then-junior on the varsity team started a petition against hiring Tolbert.

“We … do not want this position to be arbitrary given to the district’s so-called qualified candidate,” the petition reads.

Taryn Knox, then the vice president of the football parent board, shared her concerns about Tolbert’s hiring process and his record at Abington at school board meetings and in meetings between administrators and football parents until the district formally made Tolbert the coach in June.

At a May board meeting, Knox said Tolbert had been “let go” from Abington, calling him “not appropriate or qualified” for the head coach job.

She was not the only parent who spoke out at that meeting.

“We asked for our children to have a solid leadership,” said Dana Burnley, whose son was on the team. Burnley said that her son had interest from seven Division I schools but that the coaching switch had disrupted the recruitment process.

Burnley’s husband, Ralph, a volunteer coach, was among those charged alongside Tolbert last week and faces the same charges of endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy. Ralph Burnley has not responded to calls seeking comment.

Multiple upperclassmen also met with Hammond and Sheridan in April to voice their concerns, according to a list that Knox emailed to the principal. Included in the list of concerned players were at least two who were charged last week in connection with the assaults.

“Every plea that we tried was ignored,” Knox said — including one at an April 22 meeting with parents where Knox asked Tolbert to voluntarily resign to reopen the hiring process. Hammond rushed to take the microphone from Tolbert before he could respond, she said.

Cheltenham did not answer any questions this week about parent concerns ahead of Tolbert’s hiring.

Tolbert applied for the open Cheltenham position after a brief stint at Abington that he had left an offensive coordinator role at Cheltenham to pursue. The 2023 move to Abington was a promotion to head coach, but his tenure there was short-lived.

The Abington team won only one game that season, and Tolbert’s employment expired. Abington has acknowledged that the district opted not to renew the one-season appointment but declined to give further details.

Parents from both schools said they believed it was a failure to address bullying and a toxic team culture that led to his departure.

“There were kids being bullied in the locker room, the language, cussing out coaches,” Knox said this week.

After charges against Tolbert went public last week, an Abington parent shared with The Inquirer the text of a 2023 email he said was sent to Abington officials outlining similar allegations he had heard at the time, including that Tolbert failed to intervene in persistent bullying on the team and crude language from other coaches.

Before a Sept. 8, 2023, game, a coach used the f-slur to refer to the opposing team in a pep talk in front of Tolbert, who did not intervene, the email alleges. The complaint also describes instances when Tolbert failed to break up fights or react appropriately when he saw bullying, including a player who verbally berated a teammate with disabilities.

“It wasn’t a secret,” said the Abington parent, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation against his child, who still attends the school. “Many parents knew why he was removed. I’m shocked that he was able to get another job.”

Union contract gave Tolbert leg up for coach

Knox and Ferguson said the district hired Tolbert without an interview.

“The [same] buildup that happened here, happened at Abington,” Knox said. “It just didn’t lead to an assault.”

Before Tolbert’s hiring, Cheltenham parents were already upset about former coach Troy Gore’s removal during an important recruitment period, Knox and Ferguson said, because it left players who anticipated scholarships from Division I schools without an advocate.

“These are students who are trying to achieve higher education while also playing a sport that they love, and for some of them, this is their only option,” Knox said at the May 2025 school board meeting.

But when parents questioned what they viewed as an abbreviated hiring process for Gore’s replacement, administrators pointed to a clause in the teachers union contract that gives qualified staff first pick of coaching jobs ahead of external candidates, Knox and Ferguson said.

Tolbert briefly taught business at Cheltenham until he resigned in October 2023, board documents show. He then took a job at Abington as a long-term substitute for business education in addition to coaching.

Cheltenham rehired Tolbert as a business teacher before announcing his 2025 appointment as head coach.

‘Be accountable’

Knox returned for the June 2025 board meeting and said she had been promised a call from the superintendent after the May meeting, but did not receive one.

“Be accountable,” Knox said at the June meeting. “If you say you’re going to follow up, please follow up.”

Superintendent Brian Scriven replied that there was a meeting planned with football players.

“I did say I was going to call you. I opted not to. I will own that,” the superintendent said, adding that Knox had his number and could call him.

The board officially appointed Tolbert as coach at the meeting.

Knox’s son did not trust Tolbert as a teacher or a coach, she said.

“He had been a part of the team for two years prior to that and didn’t have the relationship with the boys,” Knox said.

‘The administration failed these kids’

The administration erred again, Ferguson said, by not suspending students who were involved in the locker room assault recorded on video.

Nearly 20 members of the team witnessed the locker room assault, according to the district’s investigation, and the video was widely circulated. Ferguson said his son and most of the team did not witness the attack.

Jackson always stayed on the field after practice running extra drills, his dad said, and Ferguson would bring his younger son to hang out on the grounds while they waited for him to finish.

By January, the superintendent had publicly acknowledged the district was aware of “several” perpetrators.

But the lack of disciplinary action left the entire team in limbo all year — isolating Jackson from teachers and other students, who were not sure which players were involved, Ferguson said: “People can’t fathom the fact that he’s the starting quarterback and he didn’t know about it.”

Now Jackson, who broke the school’s sophomore quarterback passing record in 2024, is struggling to find a transfer school.

“The administration failed these kids,” Ferguson said.

Knox transferred her son to a Philadelphia school before the incidents. He is set to play football at East Stroudsburg University, a Division II school.

“Thank God I pulled him out,” Knox said. “Every school said, ‘We know you came from Cheltenham; we’re glad you transferred.’”

Staff writer Maddie Hanna contributed to this article.

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