The Albemarle County School Board asked Superintendent Matthew Haas to resign following a tense June 10 public meeting of Hollymead Elementary parents and school division officials. Parents and teachers demanded answers regarding the division’s response to crimes allegedly committed by a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) coach at Hollymead. While sympathetic to their concerns, Haas appeared unprepared to field questions and struggled to articulate either the district’s current policies or a plan for concrete next steps.
SEL coach Michael Swiney, 37, was charged in early June with 11 counts of child sexual abuse including aggravated sexual battery and indecent liberties with a child. The incidents allegedly occurred at Hollymead during 2024 and 2025 as he met privately with students behind closed doors and on walks around school grounds. Though county police began an investigation into allegations against Swiney in January of this year and Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS) removed him from his post at that time without explanation, parents were not notified of the investigation and many learned of the situation only from news outlets when he was arrested in June.
Albemarle County Police Department (ACPD) acting chief Camille Stewart described the slow pace of working with young victims. “We have our detectives and also a victim witness specialist to help gather evidence and statements from the victims, and it takes time,” said Stewart. “Sometimes [parents] want us to look into [allegations] but they’re not ready to go through a court proceeding, and we don’t ever want to force anybody through that. We do not release information about a case until we make an arrest, and we can’t do that until we reach a threshold [of evidence] to go to a grand jury. I cannot share details of the case because we are still building it.”
Accountability
The most urgent questions parents asked of school division officials involved how to find out if their own child had ever met with Michael Swiney at the school. Attendees repeatedly asked for a list of affected or potentially exposed students, a timeline for notification, and clarity about whether any such list was complete. ACPD Public Information Officer Logan Bogert confirmed for the Gazette that an initial student list was shared with police on June 8, only two days before the community meeting, and that ACPD has already spoken to all of those families…