What the court documents say happened – hassteveclarkresignedyet

Three Smyrna elementary school employees have been charged and the Smyrna School District has filed at least one civil lawsuit after special needs students were repeatedly abused.

A police investigation revealed that staff threw objects at the students, yelled at them and called them names, police said. According to court documents, the students were isolated in a dark bathroom, beaten in the face and sprayed with a water bottle while the student or students with a known indigestion were fed hot Taki chips and hot sauce.

Employees “selected particularly vulnerable children for abuse,” the civil complaint said. According to court documents, police initially determined that nine children under the age of 6 with significant disabilities had been abused, but the investigation later identified three more victims.

The victims were unable to self-report the abuse because they were all “identified as having autism or Down syndrome and with a significant intellectual or developmental disability,” court documents state. “They are non-verbal, with very little or no ability to communicate.”

The civil suit alleges that the parents raised concerns with school administrators, but they “failed to take adequate and timely action to prevent or stop the abuse,” the complaint states.

Accusation

The abuse first came to light on Feb. 16 when an employee reported “possible professional misconduct,” the Smyrna school district said in a statement. The Smyrna Police Department and the Delaware Department of Justice then launched an eight-month investigation.

Police announced the Nov. 6 arrests of Marissa Johnson, 26, and Makayla Lomax, 31, both of Smyrna, and Morgan Donahue, 21, of Clayton.

Johnson was charged with 10 counts of endangering the welfare of a child; Lomax on nine counts of endangering the welfare of a child, indecent touching and third-degree child abuse; and Donahue on one count of endangering the welfare of a child. All three were released on unsecured bail.

The district does not disclose their positions at the school, but publicly available salary information lists all three as para and substitute teachers, while Johnson is also listed as an elementary specialist. The civil suit describes Johnson as a teacher.

On the day of the arrests, the school district released a statement saying that “appropriate” staff members were not present with the students because the district “became aware of the alleged wrongdoing” and that “most of the individuals allegedly involved are no longer employed by the district.”

The district will respect the privacy rights of the remaining employees involved “regarding the termination of employment,” the statement said, and will report to the Department of Education’s Division of Licensing and Certification.

Abuse

Between September 1, 2023 and February 16, 2024, Johnson and Lomax witnessed throwing items such as “small bean bag chairs, bean bag chairs, small matchbox style toy cars, worm ropes, boxes for lunch and ball,” as well as meals, from the students, court documents state. According to court documents, these students often had objects thrown on the ground.

They corrected students by splashing them with a water bottle, pulled their hair, aggressively pulled their arms, squeezed their hands to cause pain, and used “physical restraints in an aggressive manner contrary to their teaching and acceptable practice,” the report said. court documents.

According to court documents, they yelled at the students, called them names and, as a form of discipline, “forced the victims into the classroom bathroom and often turned off the lights, closed the doors, and barred them from the outside.”

In one particular instance, a student screamed for help, saying, “Mom, help, help, go away, go away,” according to court documents.

The most detailed information about the bullying of a student or students with an indigestion is contained in the court documents.

The incident, in which Johnson fed student Takis, occurred on or about Sept. 1, 2023, court documents state. Those made the student cry, and Johnson “found humor” in the incident, according to court documents.

According to court documents, Donahue fed the student a spoonful of hot sauce in the fall of the 2022-2023 school year, which caused the student to cry and Donahue to laugh. She also admitted to giving the Takis to the student, but said a parent had provided them, according to court documents. The student’s mother denied ever sending anything spicy to school because of her child’s indigestion, according to court documents.

“There is probable cause to show that Donahue’s intentional and purposeful actions in feeding (a particular student) who has an indigestion with hot sauce and chips as a form of humor constitute, at a minimum, emotional abuse of a child,” the court said. said in the documents.

The paraprofessional, who has not been charged, is also named in court documents. According to court documents, a witness told police that on Feb. 16, 2024, he saw a paraprofessional place a student in a bathroom and hold the door. The same paraprofessional is mentioned in the civil suit.

Civil action

An 8-year-old girl with “severe disabilities” is now the subject of a civil lawsuit against the Smyrna School District, according to a complaint filed by her unnamed parents. According to the complaint, she has been diagnosed with an “intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder,” is nonverbal, and is not fully toilet trained.

The student was abused during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, the complaint states. According to the complaint, Johnson was the student’s teacher during the first year, and the following year the student was in a nearby classroom. Johnson’s “assistants” often helped in both classes, the complaint said.

During those two years, the student “began to exhibit severe anxiety and avoidance of school, cried on the way to school, and resisted entering the building and the hallway where her classroom was located,” the complaint states.

The student has many food-related symptoms. Her individual education plan states that she must be closely supervised during mealtimes “due to her filling her mouth with food and trying to grab her peers’ food,” the complaint states. According to the complaint, staff are required to “cut her food into smaller pieces and monitor her while she eats because she frequently regurgitates food.”

If not on a strict diet, vomiting can last up to 90 minutes, the complaint says, so it was “particularly cruel and humiliating” when staff fed her Takis.

The student also “watched helplessly as (staff members) physically assaulted their disenfranchised classmates — children with severe multiple disabilities — inflicting similar abuse, beatings and slaps,” the complaint states.

By February, the parents had raised concerns about disturbing changes in the children’s behavior and treatment, said the family’s attorney, Dennis McAndrews. Those concerns were brought to the attention of Principal Cynthia McNutt, Associate Principal Leslie Gregory, Superintendent Susan Brown, and Superintendent of Student Services Jennifer Morris, according to the complaint.

McAndrews said there should have been an investigation. Parents should have continued to send their children to school under truancy laws until concrete evidence of abuse was established, he said.

The lawsuit alleges nine claims, including intentional infliction of emotional distress, gross negligence and discrimination.

“We will work hard to bring to justice those who harmed these children in any way,” McAndrews said.

According to him, McAndrews is part of the firm McAndrews, Mehalik, Connolly, Hulse and Ryan, which represents the interests of the six affected families. In addition to the civil suit, the firm is preparing another civil suit on behalf of the four families, he said.

Another family is represented by attorney Christopher Johnson, who also said he is preparing a lawsuit.

Shannon Marvel McNaught covers southern Delaware and beyond. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter @MarvelMcNaught.