The Plymouth-Canton School District is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by a student who claims the district turned the other way as she was bullied and harassed by another student.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this week, a student in the Plymouth-Canton School District claims she was “bullied and harassed by a male student,” and argues that the district did nothing to help her. The suit itself was filed against Plymouth Canton community schools after the student, a teenage girl, “suffered extreme bullying for over a year.” According to the girl’s attorney, Jennifer Salvatore, administrators at the school did nothing to stop the harassment and bullying.
In a statement regarding the matter, Salvatore said:
“This boy at school repeatedly harassed her, bullied her, targeted her and humiliated her to the point of attempting suicide. I’m disappointed it wasn’t addressed earlier and that it has come to this point.”
What happened, though? Well, according to the suit, the student, who was only 14-years-old at the time the harassment began, “broke up with her boyfriend of three weeks.” However, her boyfriend, who was a year older, did not react very well to the breakup. In fact, he allegedly “began to stalk her, call her names in the hallway, flipping her off and embarrassing her in front of other students and staff,” according to the complaint. Salvatore added, “He would say I hope you get raped again, in front of other students and in common areas of the school building.”
Over time, the bullying worsened. In the spring of 2017, the boy allegedly egged the girl’s home and covered it in toilet paper. To make matters worse, he slashed her tires and wrote the word ‘whore’ on her garage door in feces, the suit states.
Throughout the harassment, the victim “reported the harassment 10 times.” Every time, school officials told her and her mother that “they would talk to him,” but nothing ever changed. Eventually, the horrid treatment pushed the victim to the edge, and she “eventually swallowed 90 pills of Adderall and posted on social media that she wanted to die.” Fortunately, she “was taken to the hospital just in time.” Soon after, she “filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights,” and that’s when Salvatore became involved.
When commenting on bullying in our schools and how it’s affecting the mental health of students like her client, Salvatore noted how there is a correlation between bullying and teen suicide. She said, “There’s an epidemic of teen suicide going on in our country and this district has been affected by suicide this year.” She added that the situation going on between her client and the school district “continues to take a toll on her mental health and education,” so much so that she has begun “doing school work from home.” However, the “school only provides a tutor for two hours per week.”
The victim and her family decided to file the lawsuit because they don’t want another student to go through what she did.
In response to the lawsuit, the Plymouth Canton School District issued the following statement:
“The district does not tolerate harassment of any kind. All allegations of harassment are taken seriously, investigated thoroughly and are responded to with appropriate action.”
Sources:
Lawsuit: Student was tormented, Plymouth-Canton schools did nothing
Lawsuit filed against Plymouth-Canton schools for not protecting student from stalking/harassment
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