2 Pacelli school administrators fired
Published 10:36 am Thursday, October 16, 2014
AUSTIN — Two Pacelli Catholic Schools administrators have been terminated after having been placed on leave about a week ago.
Pacelli President Jim Hamburge and Principal Mary Holtorf, a 1984 Pacelli graduate, were placed on leave Oct. 6 due to an internal administrative issue, according to Joel Hennessy, director of communications for the Diocese of Winona.
Hennessy confirmed Wednesday that the two were officially fired.
Hennessy previously said Hamburge and Holtorf’s leaves had nothing to do with Mary Gilles — a 28-year-old former math teacher at Pacelli High School who was arrested the same day as the administrators were placed on leave — allegedly having sex multiple times with a 17-year-old student.
When asked again, Hennessy said he could not comment further on the situation.
Gilles was suspended from teaching at Pacelli on Oct. 6 and was fired on Oct. 7.
Laura Marreel and Shawn Kennedy, both former assistant principals at Pacelli, have been serving as interim principals and will continue those roles through the end of the school year.
Kennedy has also been a past principal of Sacred Heart School in Adams, which houses kindergarten through eighth-grade students.
Pacelli Catholic School, 311 Fourth St. NW in Austin, began in 1871 when the St. Augustine Parish founded a girls’ Catholic school, soon after starting a boys’ school. It has been St. Augustine High School but was renamed Pacelli in 1957 for Pope Pius XII.