Claim alleges school district ignored repeated calls for help to end violence against the student
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–While school districts across the state celebrate Pride Month, one 13-year-old student in Everett has been forced to leave school after the Everett School District failed to stop a group of classmates from physically attacking and targeting him with racial and homophobic slurs throughout the school year.
Nicole Stanford, mother of the seventh-grade student at Evergreen Middle School, this Wednesday filed a claim against the school district in hopes that officials will change their policies and practices to prevent other children from suffering the same type of abuse her son has endured.
Students captured some of the attacks on the child and posted them to Instagram, along with dozens of other fights that have occurred at Evergreen Middle School. The page featuring Stanford’s son has since been removed, yet many other Instagram pages featuring fights at the middle school remain online.
According to Sim Osborn, the attorney for Stanford, the school was abundantly aware of the torment the child was enduring.
“Nicole reached out to the school dozens of times, pleading for help, explaining that her son would return home from school, bloodied and battered, often hysterical,” Osborn said. “At every turn, the school would make claims that they would step in and create a safe environment for the boy, and at every turn, they would fail.”
“Words are cheap, and deeds are precious – the district is long on words and short on deeds when it comes to this issue,” Osborn added.
According to Stanford, the trouble began the first day of the 2022-2023 school year, when a classmate physically threw her son off the bus while spewing homophobic vulgarities at him. As others learned about the incident and that her son had recently come out, the verbal abuse by other students began almost immediately.
“My son would come to me and ask me what certain words meant – all off them vivid descriptions of sex acts and related vulgarities. My son is barely 13 – no child should have to hear these things and no mother should be forced to explain why other kids could be so cruel,” Stanford said.
As the year progressed, the verbal taunting escalated and had a profound effect on her son, Stanford said. “He began to withdraw into himself; my happy, outgoing son became quiet, sullen and fearful,” she noted. “We immediately sought counseling for him, but that can only help so much.”
Stanford also noted that on top of the anti-gay verbal abuse that her son endured, he also fell victim to racial epithets aimed at his Asian ethnicity.
“What he needs is a safe school environment that allows him to learn, grow and be a normal 13-year-old boy, not worried about what will happen when he turns a corner,” she added.
According to Stanford, the verbal abuse turned to violence in December, when her son was attacked by a group of students on the school grounds; the assault was captured on video and posted online.
“My son came home, hysterical. It took me an hour to calm him down enough to get him to tell me what happened,” Stanford said. “Every parent is wired to protect their children – at that moment I felt so helpless and so incredibly frustrated in my inability to get the school to put an end to this behavior.”
Stanford said a second beating occurred just last month, which caused injuries to her son that required medical attention and the involvement of the Everett Police Department. Actions by the police or the prosecutor are pending.
Stanford added that after the most recent attack, she and her husband made the decision to remove her son from Evergreen Middle School, fearing that the attacks would escalate.
“It was abundantly clear that Evergreen either did not want to protect her son or was completely ill-equipped to create a safe learning environment for him,” attorney Osborn added. “Nicole had no other recourse but to remove him from this chronically unsafe environment.”
Since pulling her son from school, the district has offered to let her son attend school remotely, something she is loath to do.
“My son – like many of his classmates – had a horrendous COVID experience. Forcing him back into isolation again is punishing our son, who has done nothing wrong,” she added.
“I have a hard time wrapping my head around the district’s thinking – let’s take a 13-year-old victim and make him sit in an empty room with a computer, while his attackers are allowed to continue school unfettered,” Osborn said. “We simply won’t let that happen.”
“We put our trust in the school’s faculty to protect our child from being savagely beaten, at the very least. They failed us too many times over the last year,” Stanford added.
“Nicole absolutely did not want to file this case,” said Osborn. “She wanted the district to stand up and do their job in protecting her son, giving him the ability to go to school without fear. The district repeatedly failed to so despite numerous promises, so we intend to hold the district accountable through the court.”
This claim is the first step for Stanford to use her legal rights to hold the district accountable. Washington law mandates that before any public agency can be sued, a plaintiff must first file a claim against the institution, wait for 60 days and then move forward with filing a lawsuit – in this instance, in Snohomish County Superior Court.
About Osborn Machler
The attorneys at Osborn Machler represent plaintiffs in a wide range of cases including discrimination, personal injury, products liability, and professional malpractice cases. Osborn Machler is noted for taking difficult cases and successfully taking them to settlement or trial. The firm has extensive experience representing injured persons against federal, state, and local governments. You can learn more about the firm, its cases and expertise at www.osbornmachler.com.
Contacts
Sim Osborn (206) 441-4110
Osborn Machler Sosborn@osbornmachler.com
Mark Firmani
Firmani + Associates Inc. mark@firmani.com
