After a scandal that ended her career in education, an ex-high school teacher has found her latest job as Ithaca City Hall’s top aide.
Trumansburg Central School District officials in 2017 investigated Christine Ibert for allegedly having carried on an intimate relationship with one of her students for at least a year. She resigned in 2018 as an English teacher at Charles O. Dickerson High School, and her teaching certificate was revoked.
The student was 16 years old while Ibert was “dating” him, according to his father.
After her resignation, Ibert joined The Ithaca Times, where she still works, and, according to a former reporter, deleted The Times’ story about her allegations.
Now, Ibert, 52, also works as the city manager’s executive assistant, where she assists with day-to-day operations in City Hall, handles a wide array of confidential documents and has a salary advertised as paying up to $67,000.
While the allegations against Ibert made headlines in local news outlets across Tompkins County in 2017, her position in city government has not been previously reported. Ibert was never charged with a crime.
City Manager Deb Mohlenhoff defended Ibert, who also goes by Chris, in an email statement. “Chris is a dedicated civil servant who exceeds the qualifications for her position with the City of Ithaca. Her performance has been exemplary,” Mohlenhoff wrote.
Reached by phone and asked about the accusation that she had an inappropriate relationship with a student, Ibert told The Sun, “I have no comment. I’m hanging up now.”
The Ithaca Times in 2017 reported that it had obtained hundreds of text messages that Ibert had sent the student, including ones in which she repeatedly confessed her love for him, updated him on her divorce proceedings and suggested that he imagine causing physical pain to her then-husband.
In the texts, she also reportedly called the student “baby,” “my love” and “honey,” expressed guilt about being in a relationship with him and urged him not to tell authorities anything that could be used against her after learning that the student’s father had found out and planned to bring him to the police to give a statement.
“Every single piece of information you share is used against me,” The Ithaca Times quoted Ibert as writing to the student. “Please help me. I swear I will do whatever. I can’t take this.”
An editor’s note appended to the story on The Ithaca Times’ website states that the article was “wrongly deleted by an employee” and later restored “as it was published, as of Nov. 29, 2018.”
As far back as March 2018, Ibert began appearing on The Ithaca Times’ masthead. In addition to her City Hall job, she still works at The Times as the calendar editor.
“Christine Ibert deleted that story about herself,” said Jamie Swinnerton, who wrote the 2017 article for The Ithaca Times before going on to serve as the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. As an editor and reporter at the Finger Lakes Community Newspapers, Swinnerton helped manage three of The Ithaca Times’ sister newspapers and occasionally wrote for The Times.
After she had discovered the story was no longer on the website in November 2018, Swinnerton said she notified Matt Butler, the managing editor at the time. According to Swinnerton, Butler and Jim Bilinski, the publisher, met with Ibert, who admitted to them that she had deleted the story.
“Matt Butler told me what that meeting had found,” Swinnerton said.
When asked about who deleted the article, Bilinski told The Sun, “I don’t know if anything was deleted from our website, and I don’t know why you’re wasting time.”
Butler, who now serves as editor in chief of The Ithaca Voice, declined to comment on who deleted the article, but clarified that he “did not have hiring and firing power at the time.”
Ibert again hung up a phone call after The Sun asked if she had deleted The Ithaca Times story.
State police investigated Ibert’s alleged relationship with the student, but she was not charged with a crime, according to Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.
“There are lots of things that could be inappropriate in a teacher-student relationship that are not crimes,” Van Houten said.
Megan Conaway — the superintendent of Trumansburg Central School District, which includes the school where Ibert worked — declined to comment.
During the public comment period of Wednesday’s Common Council meeting, the evening after The Sun published this story, the former student’s father blasted Ibert’s hiring, saying he was “at a loss for words” and “beyond angry.”
“She literally was dating my 16-year-old son while she was married and had two kids,” the man told city officials, asking them, “Do you guys background check anything?”
Mayor Robert Cantelmo M.A. ’20 told The Sun he was unable to comment on personnel issues.
When The Sun inquired about community concerns over Ibert’s alleged relationship with a student, Mohlenhoff, the city manager, wrote, “I am not interested in commenting on ‘community concerns’ which have not been shared with me directly, and which have no bearing on [Ibert’s] work with the City.”
Mohlenhoff was brought on as Ithaca’s first-ever city manager in January 2024 in a switch from a mayor-led City Hall to one directed by a city manager.
It is unclear exactly when Ibert was hired, but the executive assistant to the city manager position was created in February 2024, with its official role description stating that the job requires “tact, discretion, diplomacy, initiative and independent judgment.”
To Swinnerton, one thing is clear: “I personally don’t think that [Ibert] is trustworthy.”
Update, April 3, 4:15 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a statement the former student’s father made during the public comment period of Wednesday’s Common Council meeting, as well as a response from the mayor.
