A 13-year-old Montessori student was mauled by a group of parents who encouraged him to assault his classmates — a horrifying incident caught on video outside a Yonkers school last week, legal documents allege. .
Now, the teenager’s mother, Alena Merritt, is expelling her daughter from Yonkers Montessori Academy and warning the city of Yonkers that she plans to sue for $40 million for alleged supervisory negligence. filed a notice of claim.
“I was confused and scared. They kept yelling in my face,” the girl told The Post in a phone interview with her, her mother and her attorney. “When I was attacked, I felt alone and scared because no one came to help me.”
Merritt’s daughter, whose name has been withheld at the family’s request and who goes by her initials EW, was with her four parents and others at the baseball field on the grounds of the school, which offered kindergarten through high school Montessori education. The students’ grandparents flocked to the school. According to the mother, at 7:20 a.m. on April 18, she received complaints and video footage from three cell phones.
The family’s attorney, Mark Silian, said it appears from the video that the group was looking for EW’s friend for some reason, and when that friend wasn’t there, it became a joint and several charge situation and went after EW instead. said.
In the video, the parents can be heard yelling and swearing at EW, and as the parents watch, EW tries to defend herself by slapping her, and another student runs up to her and slaps and punches her. I started.
According to a complaint filed Thursday with the City of Yonkers, EW was left “unsupervised” and “violently assaulted by students, parents, and relatives of current students on Yonkers Montessori Academy grounds during school hours.” “I was violently assaulted,” he said.
The boy was “severely assaulted and beaten, resulting in severe physical, mental and psychological injuries,” the documents say, a legal precursor to filing a lawsuit against local authorities. It becomes.
Merritt, 42, of Yonkers, told the Post he is also pursuing charges against the adults involved. She said she reviewed cell phone video with officers who were called to the school that day, and police were able to see several of the adults attacking her daughter, and at least one of them was arrested. A letter has been issued, she said. .
Yonkers Police Department and Yonkers Public Schools jointly announce that police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Nancy Rosa, 55, on charges of third-degree assault, second-degree harassment, and endangering the welfare of a child. Admitted.
Rosa does not work at the school, a representative said.
The official said the investigation is ongoing but declined to comment on whether more arrests are expected.
Merritt said she was “horrified” that something like this could happen to her child when she received a call from her daughter around 7:30 a.m., just after dropping her off at school on the bus. Ta.
“A child was screaming on the phone, screaming that he had been hit…and I couldn’t understand it,” said Merritt, the day care center’s executive director.
Merritt said her mother would never dream of sending EW back to school, so her daughter is currently receiving distance learning from a private tutor in a program offered by Yonkers Montessori Academy for about the last 40 days of the school year. He said he has received it. I’m worried about her safety.
EW has already decided to enroll at a private girls’ Catholic school next year.
Merritt filed a preliminary notice of claim against the same school in January, alleging that a staff member sexually harassed her by pulling her bra and shaking her breasts because she believed she was concealing e-cigarettes. The claim documents show that the company had submitted the following.
Merritt said this second incident made her think, “It’s here again.”
“We have children who are unsupervised and unprotected,” Merritt told the Post. “I’m not going to put her in danger or put her in her den of lions every day.”
Merritt and his attorney, Shirian, said they wonder if school security and staff intentionally did not intervene in last week’s fight in retaliation for the pending claims against the school.
Sirian said Merritt and her daughter have been “understandably traumatized by this ordeal” and urged the school to “take immediate and decisive action to rectify this situation and prevent incidents like this from happening in the future.” I asked them to take action.”
“This egregious neglect of student safety is completely unacceptable,” Sirian told the Post.
The attorney said his clients may consider filing a lawsuit against the parents involved, but likely not until the criminal investigation and associated criminal proceedings are complete.
The latest notice of claim alleges negligent supervision, negligent hiring, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and other related charges against Yonkers, the Yonkers Board of Education, and Yonkers Montessori Academy.
Old notices of claim list many of the same defendants’ names.
Rosa and representatives from the city, Yonkers BOE and Montessori schools did not respond to requests for comment on the post.
