Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP attorneys Rahul Ravipudi, Ian Samson, and Adam Ellis have a filed a lawsuit against Sandra Thompson Elementary School Principal Shawn Halland and the Clark County School District on behalf of the mother of a three-year-old boy who suffered abuse at the hands of his Pre-K Special Education teacher. Plaintiff alleges that the school failed to protect her young son and intentionally concealed the abuse. Plaintiff is also represented by co-counsel Khaldoun Baghdadi and Valerie Rose of Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger.
In August 2019, Cortney Larson – mother and Guardian Ad Litem to Plaintiff D.S. – enrolled her son in the Clark County School District Pre-Kindergarten program at Sandra Thompson Elementary School (STES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Diagnosed with Developmental Delay, D.S. was assigned to Defendant teacher Melissa Olszewski’s Autism Pre-K classroom where multiple special education classroom aides and students were also assigned.
In the months that followed, Ms. Larson began to observe changes in her son’s behavior, and her frustration grew as week after week D.S. returned home from school with a new scratch or bitemark. On at least one occasion, Larson emailed Defendant Olszewski when D.S. returned home from school with a visible injury to his eye and cheek. At the time, teacher Olszewski explained away the incident as a playground conflict turned physical between two children racing to be first in line for the school bus.
That all changed in February 2020 when Ms. Larson received a call from the school, notifying her of an incident involving her son. Larson was told that Defendant Olszewski had “lost her cool” and “grabbed D.S. by his arm, pulling him off the ground and striking his body multiple times in front of eyewitnesses.” The mistreatment and abuse of D.S. by his own teacher was in response to his disabilities. School administrators were notified of the abuse by classroom aides and in turn made a report to the Clark County School District Police Department (CCSDPD) to investigate.
During CCSDPD’s criminal investigation, the aides confirmed that Defendant Olszewski engaged in physical, emotional, and verbal abuses with D.S. and her other disabled Pre-K students on a “regular basis” which included but was not limited to: flicking fingers, slapping, pulling, aggressively jerking students by their hands and arms, physically forcing students’ bodies down into chairs while screaming in their face “sit down!”; slapping and “popping” students on their arms and hands, spanking, yanking, and striking students in the head with paper, notebooks, and other items.
On October 26, 2020, the State of Nevada filed criminal charges against Defendant Olszewski including six counts of felony child abuse, as well as neglect or endangerment for her abuse of D.S. and five of his classmates, all of whom were between the ages of 3 and 4 years old at the time of the abuse.
In May 2021, the disgraced teacher appeared before the court and entered a plea of no contest to a charge of Disorderly Conduct, a misdemeanor. The six felony charges will be dismissed after Defendant Olszewski completes impulse control counseling and 100 hours of community service. She remains employed in education and continues to work with disabled children.
Following the abuse, Plaintiff’s parents pulled their son from the CCSD and moved out of state where he continues to experience extreme anxiety, stress and fear as a result of the misconduct of the Defendants. Because of his disabilities, D.S. is unable to report all that occurred to him while in the care of Defendants. The full extent and duration of the abuse he suffered remains unknown.
Despite CCSD’s knowledge of Defendant Olszewski’s abuses and the District regulations requiring each of these incidents to be documented on a CCF-624 form for each student, Plaintiff’s lawsuit alleges that the Defendants repeatedly turned a blind eye to justice for their son and the other minor victims. Not only did Defendants fail to comply with state laws and district policies regarding the mandatory documentation of the use of aversive interventions and corporal punishment, they failed to take action to intervene to protect the disabled students in their care or to report the abuse to the Nevada Department of Education and parents of the abused students as is required.
Public records obtained by the Plaintiff’s attorneys confirm that, in its statutorily required report to the Nevada Department of Education for the 2019-2020 school year, CCSD claimed that no staff at Sandra Thompson Elementary School ever employed an aversive intervention or restraint, and no students’ rights were violated.
Plaintiff demands a trial by jury and seeks the following claims for relief: Violation of Constitutional Rights, Discrimination in Violation of the American with Disabilities Act, Violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Battery, Criminal Violations Motivated by Characteristics of Victim, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Negligence as well as Negligent Supervision, and Enhanced Damages for Injury or Loss Suffered by a Vulnerable Person.
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