A Lehighton Area School District administrator is fighting back against what he termed “ridicule and false claims” by one of the district’s board members.

Assistant High School Principal David Hauser said Monday, in comments to the school board, that Director David Bradley Sr. claimed he “strip searched a student and shared sexually explicit imagery on social media.”

“The claims are false and have served to harm my reputation,” Hauser said. “For the past six months, Bradley has lied to the parents, residents and students of this district from the pulpit of his elected position. Bradley’s actions have led to personal and professional stress and continued harassment and embarrassment.”

In June, a parent of a Lehighton Area High School student attended a board meeting and alleged his son was “strip searched,” which he defined as having any article of clothing removed during the search.

According to Hauser, he did conduct searches of students based upon reasonable suspicion they possessed contraband items.

“My work was directly observed by the building principal and subsequently evaluated by the assistant superintendent, superintendent and solicitor,” Hauser said. “All found no wrongdoing and one described the searches as textbook.”

Bradley was subsequently barred from the district’s high school and administration building for a year, with the exception of attending a school board function or preapproved meeting, after two alleged incidents, one of which involved the search in question.

According to a report, released by Bradley, he and fellow director Joy Beers were present at a parent-principal/assistant principal meeting.

“This followed an incident earlier in the day dealing with student discipline and searches of other students that complied with both state and federal law,” Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver wrote in the report.

During the meeting, the report continues, Bradley “accused an employee of being prejudiced. Mr. Bradley then stated that the employee gets excited when he conducted searches of the student’s person, implying a sexual inclination of the employee.

“Mr. Bradley also stated the employee was unethical and questioned his hiring as debate coach because he was a terrible debater. Again, his behavior and demeanor was threatening and put two district employees in physical fear. Both employees were emotionally upset after this encounter.”

On Monday, Hauser accused Bradley of unlawfully distributing a harassment report which contained information that served to identify him as a complainant.

“I filed the report because Mr. Bradley described me in front of a student and a parent as “terrible, prejudiced and someone who gets excited to search students because he was looking to score,” Hauser said.

Bradley filed an Right To Know request earlier this year, seeking emails from three Lehighton administrators, including Hauser, from May 25 to July 10.

A legal battle over the release of those emails is currently before Carbon County Judge Roger Nanovic. During a court hearing, Bradley argued he is seeking “transparency in government.”

“The system within Lehighton Area School District for dealing with an RTK is broken,” he said.

“All of the efforts to improve transparency in the district have been met with major obstructionism.”

Hauser, meanwhile, views the requests differently, saying that the time period for the emails requested encompasses the week before the searches and the weeks immediately after them.

“I question whether that RTK was filed in the name of transparency or in the name of intimidation,” Hauser said.

Hauser requested that the district offer “a formal apology for damage done to my professional and personal reputation.”

“It is my hope the board acts quickly unless it wishes to assume the vicarious liability of Mr. Bradley’s actions.”

Bradley did not respond to the comments at Monday’s meeting and did not return an email seeking comment.