The Cheltenham school board on Tuesday appointed Chris McGinley as its interim superintendent, approving a contract for the veteran administrator through the end of the 2026-27 school year.
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McGinley, who previously led Cheltenham and Lower Merion schools before joining Temple University in 2014, takes over immediately. He replaces Brian Scriven, who resigned as superintendent earlier this month amid community uproar after charges were announced against four football coaches and six players in connection with two assaults in a high school locker room in 2025.
McGinley, who first came to Cheltenham as an assistant superintendent in 1999, led efforts in the district aimed at closing its achievement gap, and partnered with the University of Pennsylvania to establish the Center for Equity and Excellence, a regional consortium of school districts working to close their own gaps.
“At a time when the district is focused on rebuilding public trust and ensuring the safety of all students at all district schools, we believe that Dr. McGinley is uniquely qualified to lead our schools during the upcoming school year,” Cheltenham board president Leah Mulhearn said in a statement Tuesday night.
McGinley was approved unanimously at the special meeting Tuesday, according to district spokesperson Kevin Kaufman.
He will be paid $1,500 per business day “for time actually worked,” under the contract approved by the board, which specifies that McGinley is not an employee and will not receive benefits.
Cheltenham has not said what it will pay Scriven, who had received a new five-year contract from the board in December. Kaufman said last week that a separation agreement would be negotiated and approved at a future board meeting.
McGinley served as assistant superintendent in Cheltenham from 1999 to 2003. He then became superintendent and led the district until 2006. Two years later, he was named superintendent in Lower Merion, where he worked until leaving to become a professor at Temple in 2014.
In 2017, McGinley was appointed by former Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney to the School Reform Commission, a state-controlled governing body that oversaw the Philadelphia School District. When the SRC dissolved the following year, Kenney named McGinley to the new Philadelphia school board; he served until 2020.
He recently left Temple, where he had worked as policy, organizational and leadership studies department chair in the university’s College of Education and Human Development.
McGinley began his career in Philadelphia as a special-education teacher, and worked in the district as an elementary and middle school principal, regional superintendent, and executive director of leadership development.
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