By Mike Donoghue, Senior Correspondent
Woodstock school officials have agreed to pay nearly $100,000 to a local family to settle a civil lawsuit filed over claims of four years of bullying a student.
School Superintendent Sherry Sousa signed the 5-page settlement agreement on behalf of the named defendants: the Windsor Central Supervisory Union and the Windsor Central Unified Union School District.
The Vermont School Board Insurance Trust also signed off on the $97,500 settlement in U.S. District Court.
The Vermont Standard has decided it will not name the child or his parents in the interest of their privacy based in part on some of the specific claims made in the 22-page lawsuit.
Fellow students called the victim a gay slur, refused to allow him to join activities because of their prejudice against him, and repeatedly asked him in a sneering tone “Are you gay?” the lawsuit said.
The offending students would grab the victim’s body “without his consent to emphasize their taunts that his body was overly feminine,” court paper note.
He was punched, assaulted and at one point thrown to the ground and received a concussion, the lawsuit said.
“Numerous of these incidents occurred in close proximity to teachers and other WCSU staff. Repeatedly, those teachers or staff showed that they were aware of the harassment by mildly chiding the offending students,” the plaintiffs claimed.
“At no time did any WCSU personnel act to deter, much less put a complete stop to, the harassment. At no time did any WCSU personnel act to discipline the offending students,” the lawsuit said.
The WCSU is now known as the Mountain Views Supervisory Union.
As part of the agreement the lawsuit filed on March 3, 2022 was dismissed in federal court. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the bullied student and his parents.
Attempts to reach the primary lawyer for the plaintiffs were unsuccessful.
Burlington lawyer Thomas Sherrer, who was appointed to serve as an independent guardian for the child during the legal proceedings, declined comment.
The defense said it was glad the lawsuit is now closed.
“The District is pleased to resolve the lawsuit on favorable terms, with no admission of wrongdoing,” said defense attorney Sean M. Toohey, a partner at Lynn, Lynn, Blackman & Toohey in Burlington.
“The District disputes the allegations but is not interested in protracted litigation with families,” Toohey said in the email to the Vermont Standard.
Sousa, who has spent three decades with the district, did not respond to a request for comment. She was named superintendent in February 2021.
The lawsuit painted a sad picture of ongoing bullying of the student at the Woodstock Elementary School and continuing into the Woodstock Union Middle/High School.
“This is a tragic story of school officials allowing students to torment a fellow student over a period of years based on their perceptions of his sexual orientation and gender conformance,” the first paragraph of the lawsuit notes.
“It is a story of formative years tarnished by the neglect and indifference of those in authority,” it notes.
The lawsuit goes on to make specific allegations of incidents over at least four academic school years.
Court papers maintain only one person in the school system offered consolation to the targeted student — the elementary school janitor.
According to the lawsuit, administrators, teachers and staff were aware of — and in many cases saw — the bullying, but did nothing.
The supervisory union and the district, in their written response to the lawsuit, said they lacked “sufficient knowledge or information to form a belief as to the truth of the allegation that [the victim] endured years of physical and verbal harassment based on perceived sexual orientation and gender conformity at the hands of multiple fellow students.”
The defendants also denied they “were deliberately indifferent.”
The response also maintains that Principals Maggie Mills at the elementary school and Garon Smail at the middle/high school took proper action.
The defense claimed the plaintiffs failed to provide notice of the harassment, failed to mitigate the damages and failed to exhaust administrative remedies before filing the lawsuit. The defense also tried unsuccessfully to get the case thrown out based on the statute of limitations.
“WCSU showed deliberate indifference to [the victim’s] plight. From the start, WCSU teachers and administrators were aware of the harassment, yet did nothing to stop it,” the lawsuit said.
The victim’s harassers “were empowered and emboldened to continue their harassment, causing [the victim] emotional and sometimes physical harm,” the lawsuit said.
“As a result of WCSU’s deliberate indifference to peer-to-peer harassment, [the victim] has experienced, and continues to experience, significant emotional damage,” the lawsuit said.
The victim’s parents “have experienced years of anguish for the wellbeing of their child” and they have spent — and continue to spend — significant money to “ameliorate the harm being inflicted on their child,” the lawsuit claims.
In one episode, the student went to the bathroom and found somebody had put graffiti on the wall that said “[name] is a [gay slur],” the lawsuit said.
The student reported it to his teacher, who alerted the principal’s office. The school removed or painted over the graffiti, but never addressed the incident, the lawsuit said.
“At no time did any WCSU personnel do anything further to address this incident, part of an ongoing pattern of harassment against [the victim]. On information and belief, there was no effort to identify the offending student(s), the offending student(s) were not identified or held responsible, and there was no broader effort to end the ongoing harassment of which this was only one example,” the lawsuit said.
“The only WCSU employee who offered [the victim] consolation or comfort was the school’s janitor; no teacher or administrator considered [the victim’s] wellbeing in the wake of this incident,” it said.
The defendants disputed the claimed inaction. Their answer to the lawsuit said that Mills and School Counselor Erin Klocek met with the victim multiple times and the principal sent a note to teachers directing them to require all male students to sign out when leaving the classroom.
A year later the conduct escalated and became more physical, according to the lawsuit. The victim was shoved to the ground outside school and sustained a concussion, the lawsuit said. The victim saw a school nurse and no action was taken against the offending student, the lawsuit noted.
The verbal taunting and body grabbing continued in subsequent years, court records note. In one case a student grabbed and attempted to tackle the victim and in another incident the victim was punched in the chest — both while in the bathroom.
Other incidents happened in other common areas on school grounds, including classrooms, hallways, the gym, the cafeteria and the playground.
The only student to face discipline was the victim, the lawsuit said. During an incident about three years ago, in a moment of frustration he picked up an imitation, training rifle and while imitating his tormenters, declared in a sarcastic and exaggerated manner, “[Gay slur] better not come to school tomorrow.”
His friend videoed the incident and it was soon shared with at least one other student and was subsequently shared with others. It was reported to the school administration.
The victim was suspended for at least one day before the administration met with him and his parents, who maintained it was just blowing off steam from the pressure of the ongoing harassment their son had suffered over the years, court records show. It noted the parents outlined for the school leadership what they knew — their son had been the victim of harassment for years.
Instead of enforcing WCSU’s anti-harassment policy on behalf of their son, the administration retaliated against the child and his parents for their complaints about harassment and assigned him to complete 10 hours of community service, the lawsuit said.
The defendants maintain that the parents agreed with Principal Smail that community service was appropriate.
“The incongruity of disciplining [the victim] was magnified by the principal’s report to a third party, following the meeting, that [the victim] had never intended to cause alarm at the school through the making of a video in the privacy of his home,” the lawsuit said.
The victim was later told to return to his class and act like an innocent person, the lawsuit said. After lunch and before class, he was “aggressively confronted by several of the same students who had harassed him” through the years.
The harassment continued into the classroom and the victim — fearing for his safety — went to the guidance office, where he sat alone for the remainder of the day, the lawsuit said.
In the end, the bullied student left the Woodstock school system and eventually enrolled in a different school.