Albemarle County schools leader resigns as division deals with fallout from child sex arrests

Matt Haas has resigned, under pressure, from his post as the superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools, the first domino to fall in the wake of a tumultuous three-month period marked by the arrests of a fifth-grade teacher on child porn charges and an elementary school counselor on sexual battery charges.

“It is this board’s obligation to rebuild the trust with this community, and because of that, we have asked Dr. Haas for his resignation, and we have instructed our legal officer to work with Dr. Haas on the details,” School Board Chair Rebecca Berlin said during a contentious board meeting on Thursday night, per reporting from The Daily Progress.

The more recent of the two arrests involves Michael J. Swiney, 37, of Buckingham, who was a social and emotional learning coach at Hollymead Elementary School.

Swiney has been charged with 11 felonies after a months-long investigation into allegations of sex crimes involving children.

The allegations are stunning: Swiney faces seven felony counts of aggravated sexual battery, three felony counts of indecent liberties, and one felony count of attempted aggravated sexual battery.

Keep in mind: he was a counselor at an elementary school.

The Albemarle County Police Department said last week that it initiated its investigation in January into the matter involving Swiney, who had worked at Woodbrook Elementary School before being moved to Hollymead for the 2023-2024 school year, when a victim came forward to report that a staff member at their school had engaged them in inappropriate sexual contact.

The investigation into Swiney revealed three additional juvenile victims who also reported unwanted sexual contact between August 2024 and January 2026, according to the ACPD.

The first of the disturbing stories involving staff at Albemarle County Schools to come out this spring involves Nicholas J. Clark, 29, of Charlottesville, who was a fifth-grade teacher at Woodbrook.

Clark was arrested in March on two felony charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.

Haas landed in hot water for a massive mistake announcing the arrest of Clark in a message to families and staff, which also inadvertently went out to students in grades 6 through 12.

Haas said in a second email that he was “sorry for this mistake.”

“I want to apologize for having that information shared directly with students,” Haas said, blaming the communications staff for using a families list that included the children. “We believe in maintaining open dialogue with families so you can engage with your child’s learning; however, I would never wish to overstep and engage students in issues that are clearly outside the scope of their educational needs.”

One parent told AFP that their 12-year-old came home asking, “What’s child porn?”

Yeah, oopsie.

In the original email announcing Clark’s arrest, Haas tried to stress that prospective school system employees “undergo required background checks prior to employment. This includes a Virginia State Police criminal history check and a central registry search for child abuse and neglect.”

That message was reiterated in the announcement of Swiney’s arrest.

A report in the Progress noted that “parents have questioned why Swiney was allowed to be alone with children.

Haas, at a town hall with parents at Hollymead on Wednesday, a day before he was sacked, gave an answer that obviously fell well short – saying the school division’s policies don’t forbid employees from being alone with students.

“I was a teacher. It was just, I hate to say this, an unwritten rule that you didn’t,” Haas said, per the report in the Progress. “We train our employees on boundaries with students and appropriate boundaries with students, but clearly that’s not enough.”