SANTA MONICA (CNS) – A lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified on behalf of a black boy with speech and language disabilities – who claims he was verbally and physically abused by his white preschool teacher in 2019 – may continue most of his allegations, ruled today Judge.
Santa Monica Superior Court Justice Craig D. Karlan dismissed only one civil rights violation suit from the case in which the plaintiff, who is now 6 years old, is identified only as KD. His mother filed the lawsuit against LAUSD on his behalf on September 1, along with Roberta Brandt and Haywood Thompson, teachers and principal at 54th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles.
“MS. Brandt was allowed to torture KD emotionally and physically because he could not speak for himself and because Rector Thompson and LAUSD did nothing to protect him,” says the lawsuit, which also alleges that the breed is one Factor in the treatment of the adolescent.
The lawsuit also alleges battery, assault and negligence. Of the three civil rights violations lawsuits, the judge dismissed the one alleging a violation of the Unrest Civil Rights Act, ruling that LAUSD was not a business establishment.
The two civil rights violations allege that the judge allowed part of the complaint’s allegations that the boy’s race played a role in his different treatment.
In their court records, LAUSD attorneys argue that neither race nor disability influenced the treatment of KD in school.
“The plaintiff admits that the motivation for Brandt’s behavior was frustration and that he was overwhelmed by the plaintiff’s significant behavioral difficulties that had nothing to do with his race or his speech and language disabilities,” the LAUSD attorneys explain in their court records .
KD was a preschooler at the school and was 4 years old at the start of the 2019/20 school year, according to the lawsuit, which said he was eligible for special education due to a speech and language disability.
Brandt was inexperienced with children with individualized educational plans such as those made available to KD, the lawsuit says. In the five years inclusive and prior to the 2019-2020 school year, Brandt had only three students with IEPs and admitted that they had no training in interventions in children with significant behavioral problems, the lawsuit alleges.
Brandt said the boy’s behavior was “a significant challenge” for her and she was “overwhelmed” by his behavior, the lawsuit said. She called the child’s mother three times and told her to look for another school for KD because he had behavioral problems that Brandt could not deal with, according to the plaintiff’s court files.
Brandt repeatedly complained to Thompson about KD’s behavior and became increasingly frustrated that the boy failed to respond to her behavioral techniques, which included emotional abuse and dehumanized him, the lawsuit alleges.
Although Brandt let all of her other students sleep inside during their nap, according to the suit, she forced KD to sleep unattended outside on the floor in the dirt. Thompson was so concerned for KD’s wellbeing that he picked the boy up and brought him to his office to take a nap, the suit claims.
In September 2019, Brandt took KD behind the classroom, bent down to the boy’s height, put his hands on his shoulders and shook him so hard that his head tilted, the suit claims. A border guard saw how the teacher KD “violently shook” and reported this to the grandfather of the child according to the display.
The grandfather removed KD from school for a day, notified the principal, spoke to the police and, according to the complaint, took his grandson to a hospital.
The lawsuit alleges that the boy was “seriously injured and traumatized by Ms. Brandt’s repeated shaking” and that his mother subsequently enrolled her son in another school out of concern for his safety.
Brandt’s alleged abuse of KD was due to the fact that he was black and had a disability, the plaintiff alleged. According to the lawsuit, the teacher was not as violent with students who were not black or disabled.
Thompson never spoke to Brandt about her alleged instruction to let the boy sleep outside on a dirty carpet, according to the suit. Prior to the September 2019 shock incident, the school principal did not tell the boy’s parents or grandparents about the alleged mistreatment of the child by the teacher, according to the lawsuit.
Copyright 2021, City News Service, Inc.
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