BURLINGTON
A Windsor County family has claimed in a new federal lawsuit that Woodstock-based school officials failed to protect a child from ongoing gender harassment, verbal taunts, and assaults from fellow students.
The Windsor Central Supervisory Union and the Windsor Central Unified Union School District are named as defendants in the civil rights lawsuit.
“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 opening paragraph of the lawsuit indicated.
“It is a story of formative years tarnished by the neglect and indifference of those in authority,” it said.
They said the lawsuit was needed, “After enduring years of physical and verbal harassment based on perceived sexual orientation and gender conformity at the hands of multiple fellow students, and years of deliberate indifference” by the two defendants.
The Vermont Standard has made the decision not to name the student or his parents, who are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The Standard did provide the parents a chance to elaborate on their lawsuit, but they declined. Their lawyer, Christina Nolan, a former U.S. Attorney for Vermont, also passed on making any comment.
The 22-page lawsuit paints pictures of indifference toward the child by school district employees in Woodstock.
The incidents happened in the common areas of the school, including classrooms, hallways, the gym, the cafeteria and playground.
“It often occurred nearby, and, on information and belief, was overheard or otherwise observed by faculty and administrators,” the lawsuit said.
Among the incidents outlined in the lawsuit is the victim going into a bathroom and finding unflattering graffiti about him on the wall. The lawsuit maintains the WCSU personnel did nothing to address the problem.
The lawsuit maintains there was “no effort to identify the offending student[s],” and no broader effort to end the ongoing harassment.
After the incident, the only WCSU employee who offered the student “consolation or comfort was the school janitor; no teacher or administrator considered [the student’s] wellbeing in the wake of this incident or even spoke to him about the incident,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in Burlington.
The lawsuit was never mentioned during the school board meeting Monday night.
School Board Chair Bryce Sammel said Tuesday he was unaware of the legal action when reached by the Vermont Standard. He later released a statement to the newspaper on behalf of the school district contesting the claims.
“The District has carefully reviewed the District’s work with the family suing us. We dispute the statements contained in their Complaint,” it said.
“They are inaccurate. The District acted appropriately at all times and we are confident that we will prevail in the litigation,” the statement said.
“I cannot discuss the specifics of the case because it involves confidential information and we are now in litigation. However, any suggestion that our employees do not respond to instances of student misconduct are false,” he said.
“We have established policies and procedures that we follow. We investigate allegations of misconduct and where they are substantiated we take appropriate disciplinary action. The District works hard to maintain a safe and supportive learning environment of all of our students,” the statement concluded.
Please see the March 10 edition of the Vermont Standard for the full story