NJ principal indicted in ‘child abuse cover-up’ involving mayor, superintendent

🔴 NJ principal accused of ignoring teen’s home abuse

🔴 Mayor, schools super arrested for child abuse weeks later

🔴 Principal lied to staff, police say, met with accused parents

ATLANTIC CITY – The 39-year-old principal of Atlantic City High School has been indicted on charges of repeatedly failing to report a student’s abuse at home.

Officials say Constance Days-Chapman met with the parents as part of a cover-up, which has been revealed to involve the mayor and the schools superintendent, who are the parents in the case.

Months after her March arrest, she was indicted by an Atlantic County Grand Jury on five counts of second-degree official misconduct, second-degree counts of a pattern of official misconduct and endangering the welfare of a child, and third-degree hindering apprehension of another.

The teen involved in the case was not publicly identified by law enforcement due to age and privacy concerns.

Weeks after Days-Chapman’s arrest, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Junior and his wife, Atlantic City School Superintendent La’Quetta Small, were arrested on allegations of abusing their teen daughter.

An attorney for Days-Chapman referred to the Smalls in defense of his client in May, linking the cases publicly and referring to the principal as being suspended with pay, Breaking AC reported.

Read More: Atlantic City mayor, schools super wife accused of child abuse

Police say principal lied to staff, met with accused parents

In December 2023, Days-Chapman was visited in her office by a 15-year-old female student at Atlantic City High School who said she was suffering continuous headaches due to being hit by her parents at home.

Days-Chapman did not notify either the Department of Child Protection and Permanency or law enforcement authorities, prosecutors said.

On Jan. 22, the same student told a different school staff member that she had been emotionally and physically abused at home — and that the student had already reported the abuse to Days-Chapman.

RELATED: NJ principal failed to report child abuse, prosecutors say

Later that day — when the school staff member talked to the principal, Days-Chapman denied that the student had ever shared the abuse.

She then said she would report the abuse to the state and waved off a third person, unnamed by prosecutors, who offered to be the one to report the matter to authorities.

Days-Chapman told the employee that she was going to give the teen’s parents a “heads up” that child protection was going to be involved, officials said.

But then instead of reporting the abuse, Days-Chapman met with the teen’s parents outside of their house that evening, prosecutors said, adding the trio sat inside Day-Chapman’s running car.

The child abuse went unreported until two days later by someone outside of the school.

An investigation was then launched by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Victims Unit and the Professional Standards and Accountability Unit.

Anyone with relevant information can call the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office at 609-909-7800 or share details online at the Prosecutor’s Office’s website.

People can also call Crime Stoppers at 609-652-1234 or 1-800-658-8477 (TIPS) or visit the Crime Stoppers Website.