New Jersey School District Faces Lawsuit Over Alleged Bullying Cover-Up
A school district in New Jersey is being accused of neglecting bullying incidents and attempting to silence families discussing them, as detailed in a new lawsuit.
The plaintiff, a 13-year-old student who remains unnamed, asserts that officials in Montclair Public Schools failed to assist him during his time at the district. Throughout that year, he endured constant racist and homophobic taunts, according to reports.
The boy’s family alleges they both supported a cover-up of the incidents and faced intimidation tactics to deter them from filing further complaints against the bullies, as stated by attorney Lawrence Kleiner.
“His experience at that school was unbearable,” Kleiner told local media. “Instead of addressing the issue, the board just shifted blame onto him.”
Montclair Public Schools did not provide an immediate comment regarding the situation.
The alleged bullying began in the 2022-23 school year at Northeast Elementary School, where the student reported being harassed and derogatorily called “wife.” The complaint describes how the harassment intensified, with ongoing physical assaults and the use of homophobic slurs.
Kleiner mentioned that while his client doesn’t identify as gay, he faced harassment largely due to his Asian ethnicity.
What began as bullying from one or two children escalated as more peers joined in, subjecting the boy to slurs and mocking his ethnicity with inappropriate content.
When the family submitted a harassment, intimidation, and bullying (HIB) report, they claim the school district responded slowly and ultimately determined there was insufficient evidence for their allegations.
The accusations against the family’s child were met with a counter-suit from the bully’s family. Despite the victim’s family’s claims being dismissed, the district quickly upheld the counterclaims, which Kleiner argues is an intimidation tactic.
The complaint states that the board rejected the victim’s family’s appeals while ignoring testimony from a psychiatrist about the trauma the boy experienced.
This lawsuit follows a prior complaint from the district’s former anti-bullying director, Maggie Shaver Dock, who alleged that the district had falsified data to minimize reported bullying incidents. She claimed that upon refusing to make changes to evaluations, the then-Superintendent, Jonathan Pons—who died last year—took it upon himself to make those alterations.
Negotiations for a settlement began on November 3, just a day before the bullying victim’s family escalated the issue to a Superior Court lawsuit.
