Delaware
Police say Delaware teacher solicited student for sex on Instagram
In February, police charged George V. Kirk Middle School teacher David DiFilippo with sexual solicitation of a 13-year-old student. Authorities said DiFilippo was grooming the girl for sex with explicit messages and once rubbed her leg while she was alone with him in his classroom. The school is in the Christina School District.
Authorities announced Monday’s arrest of Vila within hours of him being taken into custody, accompanied by the promise to root out child predators at schools.
“Any case with a child victim is heinous. Cases where the abuser held a position of trust are beyond the pale,” Attorney General Kathy Jennings said in a written statement. “Child predators are our priority. We will find them, we will charge them without compromise, and we will bring them to justice.”
Unlike the Oliver case, where Red Clay officials never notified families about the fact that Oliver was under investigation or arrested, George Read’s principal sent school families a notice of a pending investigation on March 17, the day police interviewed the girl’s parents about Vila.
The letter from Principal Nick Wolfe didn’t say a teacher was suspected of soliciting a student but said the matter involved “a weekend incident involving members of the [school] community” and that “students were not in danger.”
After Monday’s arrest, district spokeswoman Lauren Wilson said in a statement that did not identify Vila that a George Read employee had been charged with “multiple criminal offenses” and that Colonial officials are “cooperating fully.”
Wilson’s statement noted that “the staff member has not been in the presence of students since the incident was reported.”
Wilson would not respond to questions from WHYY News about Wilson’s tenure teaching at George Read or coaching baseball and lacrosse at William Penn High School.
But Jennings’ office confirmed that he coached lacrosse in 2021 and 2022, and until the sex solicitation investigation began last week, Vila was assistant coach for the junior varsity baseball team.
State payroll records, however, show that Vila began working for Colonial in 2020. Last year, Vila was paid $72,100 by Colonial, including $5,000 in unspecified extra pay.
Anyone with information about Vila and possible criminal activity is urged to contact state police Det. Kevin Kelleher at 302-365-8436.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the description of how state police were notified of the alleged contact between Vila and the student.
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Thomas Jefferson University is opening a regional campus of its Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Delaware, an effort that will result in the state’s first medical school.
Jefferson beat out three other bidders to establish the four-year program in partnership with the state. The other bidders were the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico, Spotlight Delaware reported.
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The inaugural class of 40 medical students will begin instruction in July 2028. Initially, the campus will be based at the University of Delaware in Newark, with Jefferson faculty providing instruction. A permanent home for the campus is still being finalized, the Inquirer reported.
The medical students will receive 18 months of preclinical training on campus before receiving clinical training from healthcare providers in Delaware’s southern counties, where the state’s physician shortage is most deeply felt. That shortage is compounded by an aging population, Delaware officials said.
“Jefferson is committed to being part of the solution to Delaware’s physician shortage,” Jefferson CEO Dr. Joseph Cacchione said in a statement. “We are proud to help build a future where every Delawarean has access to the care they deserve. Jefferson is all in.”
The school’s creation is being supported by $157.4 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Delaware is one of three states without a Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program. Since the late 1960s, Jefferson and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine have reserved seats for Delaware students.
“Sidney Kimmel Medical College has trained generations of physicians for more than 200 years, more than any other medical college in the country,” Said Ibrahim, dean of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, said in a statement. “It is a privilege to bring our mission to Delaware’s patients and communities.”
Jefferson has announced several expansions recently. The university is establishing a full-time doctor of nursing practice-nurse anesthesia program and several online graduate programs at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Center for Healthcare Education in Lehigh County. It also is opening a satellite respiratory therapy lab at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown.
Delaware officials said medical students will start their classroom instruction at UD and then do their clinical training at offices and health care systems in Kent and Sussex counties, where the shortage of doctors is most acute.
However, ChristianaCare, which has its own partnership with Jefferson, is not participating. The state’s largest health care system was part of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine’s unsuccessful bid to operate the school. In a joint statement from ChristianaCare and PCOM, the two organizations expressed disappointment with not being part of the consortium of higher education institutions and healthcare organizations.
“The path forward raises genuine questions about whether the school’s goals can be fully realized without ChristianaCare’s meaningful participation in its clinical training mission,” it said. “The success of any four-year medical program depends not just on an academic institution, but on a true and committed partnership with its clinical partners — one built on shared mission, mutual investment and trust developed over time.”
Students in the first class can get their tuition subsidized, covering all of their education costs, in exchange for an agreement to work in rural Delaware for five years.
Running the medical school is expected to cost Jefferson $78 million over the next five years. The money is from a federal rural health grant through the Rural Health Transformation Program, which congressional Republicans created in the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
The program will give $50 billion to every state over five years, though exactly the total each will eventually receive is unclear. Half of the money is to be distributed equally to states and the other half is awarded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services based on a variety of factors.
The state applied for $1 billion late last year to improve health care in Kent and Sussex counties. The Trump administration has so far allocated Delaware $157 million. Delaware is expected to receive at least $500 million over the life of the fund.
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