JOLIET — During the same week that Joliet Public School District 86 administrators held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Hufford and Gompers junior highs, District 86 also found itself being sued. A parent is accusing school officials of allowing her child to endure bullying and racial harassment at Cunningham Elementary last school year.
The lawsuit does not identify the name of the parent and her child, who is a minor. The lawsuit does name as defendants District 86 Superintendent Theresa Rouse, Cunningham Elementary’s 2023-2024 Principal Luis Gonzalez, the District 86 Board of Education, Cunningham Elementary School and District 86 director of student services Dwayne Williams.
Joliet grade school spokeswoman Sandra Zalewski told Joliet Patch that District 86 does not comment on pending litigation matters. Meanwhile, Gonzalez is no longer principal; District 86 announced Marysol Sandoval as the new principal at Cunningham Elementary School, effective July.
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According to the lawsuit at the Will County Courthouse, the student identified in court records as “SJ” was bullied and physically assaulted during fifth grade at Cunningham. The child told his fifth grade teacher, Abigail Bowman, about the bullying on Sept. 21, 2023. The child’s mother learned that “a student had words with SJ and physically used a pencil to stab him in her classroom,” the lawsuit outlined. “During a phone call, Ms. Bowman promised to keep SJ safe until (the parent) arrived at the school to pick up SJ.”
A Joliet police report was made of the incident, and Principal Gonzalez spoke with the mother upon her arrival at school. The lawsuit indicates “no further action was taken by the school, the teacher or Principal Gonzalez” and between September 2023 and May 2024 “SJ was subject to multiple verbal harassment by another student and physical harm including a beating.”
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On March 6, Cunningham staff notified the parent that her son was involved in an attack “where he was pushed into a metal fence, pushed to the ground and then picked back up and thrown by three or four students on the playground,” the lawsuit contends.
On May 2, Bowman, the teacher, notified the parent that the student involved in the March 6 bullying was “in close proximity in the lunchroom to SJ and attempted to attack SJ once again despite prior assurances from Principal Luis Gonzalez that the two students would be kept separate,” the lawsuit stated.
As for Superintendent Rouse, “each of the incidents were reported by (the parent) to the Superintendent, Theresa Rouse” and directly to the director of student services, Dwayne Williams, the lawsuit noted.
The plaintiff indicated in her lawsuit that she was informed “by other students and their parents of similar bullying events and racial harassment. Again, (the parent) reported these incidents to the defendants. No action was taken until one of these students had to leave school grounds via ambulance.”
The lawsuit against District 86 was filed by attorney Elizabeth Klukas of the Joliet law firm of Block, Klukas, Manzella and Shell.
The plaintiffs contend that “none of the students that were identified as perpetrators of the bullying/racial harassment against SJ were ever disciplined for their actions by the defendants.”
The parent took her son out of Cunningham and in June, “defendant Luis Gonzalez gave (the parent) the student journal of SJ. In there, was reference to more acts of harassment and physical abuse. This had never been reported to (the parent) or any other agency despite Gonzalez’s awareness of the attacks from the student journal,” the lawsuit advised.
According to the plaintiffs, “the principal never reported these bullying incidents to the superintendent or the board of education” and “the defendants’ utter indifference to the entire situation was a proximate cause of SJ’s physical and emotional injuries.
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