The mother of a young Connecticut girl is suing a school system claiming her daughter was sexually harassed for months in eighth grade while administrators did little or nothing to intervene.
After the girl’s parents went to police, the Granby school system then allegedly retaliated against the girl, according to the lawsuit.
Harassment and threats by a boy and his friends allegedly continued for eight months, with the school failing to discipline them or to protect the girl, according to the suit. After the boys allegedly menaced the girl at a town-sponsored dance, the mother said she finally had to withdraw the girl from classes and enroll her in a private school.
The suit was filed last month in Hartford Superior Court by attorney Anthony Spinella on behalf of the girl and her mother. The court gave permission for the plaintiff’s names to be shielded, so neither the girl nor her family are named in the legal paperwork.
Schools Superintendent Cheri Burke said by email that she is not able to publicly comment about the case, a standard procedure amid a pending lawsuit.
Attorney James Williams of the North Haven firm of Williams, Walsh & O’Connor is representing the two defendants: Granby’s school system and the town itself. Williams last week asked the court to give the defendants until Dec. 8 to file a response to the suit. On Monday afternoon Williams could not be reached.
The pattern of alleged harassment began near the start of the 2023-24 school year when the girl was 12 and beginning eighth grade at Granby Memorial Middle School, according to the lawsuit.
Spinella gives this account:
During the school day, a boy and a group of his friends allegedly threatened to physically and sexually assault the girl, the suit claims. Ten days later, her parents met with Heather Tanis, who had just been appointed principal the previous month, and Peter Bogen, an interim administrator at the school, and filled out an official “Report of Suspected Bullying or Teen Dating Violence.”
Bogen investigated, and the following week the school administration developed a safety plan for the girl that said all school staff would be notified not to put her in classes with the boy or his friends, the suit says.
Months late, the boy and his friends allegedly surrounded the girl in the school cafeteria and made “sexualized and threatening comments to her,” according to the suit. “Plaintiff had to run down the hall into a classroom in order to escape and notified a teacher.”
Four days later the girls parents met again with Tanis. But within a month or so, a substitute teacher sent the girl to retrieve an item from a classroom where the boy was. The boy stared menacingly at her, the suit alleges.
The girls’ parents believe that neither the substitute nor the regular classroom teacher knew about the safety plan. When the girl’s father complained to recently promoted Assistant Principal Alex Schwartz, Schwartz replied that the schools generally don’t notify substitutes about a student safety plan, according to the suit.
In May, the town’s youth services bureau hosted a dance for eighth-graders at a municipal building. More than 100 Granby eighth-graders attended, but the dance wasn’t sponsored by the schools.
“At the dance, the (male) student and a group of his friends surrounded plaintiff and her friends and called them sexualized and racist language, the suit claims. “The plaintiff and the girls with her were scared and crying.”
Dance chaperones intervened, and a youth service coordinator ordered the boy and his friends to stay away from the girl and her friends, according to the suit. But the boy allegedly “engaged in more bullying and harassing behavior towards plaintiff when she and a friend walked outside to leave,” the suit says.
The youth service coordinator encouraged the girl to report what happened to the school administration on the next school day, and sent parents a letter saying “The school is aware of what happened and is addressing the incident. The youth service bureau will continue to work with them as they address the harassment.”
The girl’s mother contends that Tanis claimed the school “would partner” with police about the matter, but refused to discuss what happened because it occurred off school grounds.
The mother claims that when police got involved the next day, Tanis told them she’s talked with the boy and his friends and they’d denied any involvement.
“Granby police ultimately closed the case because the school (administration) had taken it upon themselves to investigate and interview the students accused of wrongdoing,” the suit claims.
Burke then said school administrators couldn’t take action because the girl’s parents had gone to the police, according to the suit.
The lawsuit contends the school system retaliated against the girl because police were notified, but it doesn’t elaborate. It also alleges that administrators knew the boy had “a troubled history,” but still failed to protect her. Administrators didn’t follow their own policies, and failed to keep records documenting a protracted series of bullying allegations, it claims.
The suit seeks unspecified financial damages, alleging the girl suffered emotional and psychological harm because of the school system’s negligence.
