School Bullying Council

The mother of a middle school student has filed a federal lawsuit against the Harrisburg School District, alleging that its educators failed to accommodate her son’s Tourette’s Syndrome or to protect him from bullying and assaults by other students.

The complaint, prepared by Tigard attorney Kevin Brague, seeks unspecified economic and non-economic damages for allegedly violating his civil rights over a period of three years. It accuses the district of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress by allowing other students to taunt, push and strike him because of their perceptions that he was gay.

Harrisburg Superintendent Brian Wolf declined comment on the suit, saying district officials do not publicly discuss pending litigation.

Read more in Monday’s Register-Guard.

http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/26805877-55/district-suit-harrisburg-says-students.html.csp

A U.S. District Court case involving a Chequamegon High School student, Rachell Morenweiser, and her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, was dismissed on March 24, according to federal documents.

The lawsuit, filed by Morenweiser and Kennedy against the Chequamegon School District in August 2010, had claimed the district “remained deliberately indifferent” to repeated complaints about bullying by classmates against Morenweiser. The suit also had claimed that school officials had taken action against Morenweiser’s step-father, Timothy Kennedy, employed by the district, when he complained about the bullying to school officials.

Chequamegon School District Superintendent Mark Luoma, High School Principal Todd Lindstrom, and School Counselor Katherine Rybak, one of Morenweiser’s classmates, and various insurance companies had been named as defendants in the suit.

The order for dismissal, outlined by District Court Judge Barbara B. Crabb, reads as follows:

each and every legal claim and issue, including cross claims, whether available under state or federal law, which were raised or which could have been raised in this action by any of the parties shall all be dismissed on their merits by the district court, with prejudice, but without an award of costs or fees by the court and without any further notice from or hearing before the presiding district court judge.

http://ashlandcurrent.com/article/11/04/02/bullying-case-dismissed-against-chequamegon-school-district