EVERETT — A lawsuit alleging Northshore School District staff repeatedly restrained and isolated an elementary school student nearly four years ago has reached a settlement of $500,000.
The child’s family sued the district in 2023. The parents, who are deaf, also alleged the district did not provide them with sufficient interpreter services and illegally barred them from observing their child’s classroom.
“We think this settlement is fair considering what happened to the student and her family,” said Whitney Hill, the family’s attorney. “The district, beyond the settlement, has really taken the initiative to fix the issues that led to all these things happening.”
Northshore School District did not admit liability by entering the settlement agreement, Hill said. The district did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In 2021, staff at Lockwood Elementary School transferred the child to a special education classroom because her parents suspected she might have a developmental disability. The lawsuit alleges the district repeatedly ignored the family’s request to include the child’s grandmother in district communications to act as an interpreter.
In September 2021, special education teacher Sarah Rabine allegedly restrained the child in the school’s lunchroom. The restraint made the child so upset and overstimulated that she vomited, the lawsuit said. When her mother came to pick her up, the school didn’t tell her what made the child sick. One week later, the teacher emailed the mother saying she had to use a light hold on the student because of behavioral issues, the website said.
The child had not displayed troubling behavior at home, according to the lawsuit. State law only allows teachers to restrain and isolate students “when reasonably necessary to control spontaneous behavior that poses an imminent likelihood of serious harm.”
A district-approved independent evaluator diagnosed the child with autism, ADHD and “Other Specified Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorder,” which was likely caused by the restraint she experienced at Lockwood Elementary, according to the suit.
In January 2021, the district reportedly denied the parents’ request to observe their child’s classroom, citing a district policy that protects the confidentiality of special education students. State law allows parents to observe a classroom as long as it does not cause a disruption.
Five months later, Tamorah Redshaw, the principal at the time, approved the parents’ request to observe. However, the family said the district didn’t hire adequate interpreter services.
The family also alleged staff discriminated against them as one of the only Black families at the school.
By October 2021, Rabine restrained and isolated the child as many as five times a day. In December 2021, Rabine reported she had bruises and a bite mark after restraining the child. In January 2022, she restrained the child twice, making the child so distressed that she tried to cut herself with classroom scissors, the lawsuit read.
The following week, the district’s behaviorist was observing the classroom when Rabine restrained the child for refusing to wear a mask when she was close to other classmates.
“Rabine really needs to focus on what she is teaching (the child) to do instead of engaging in those target behaviors,” the behaviorist wrote.
Later that month, the child hit her head while being restrained. This prompted the parents to hire an attorney.
Two weeks later, Rabine and Redshaw reported the parents to Child Protective Services based on Rabine’s accounts of the child’s behavior in the classroom.
Once the lawsuit began, the district agreed to transfer the child to another school. The child did not have any behavioral issues at the new school, the lawsuit said.
The district has since worked with the family to find more effective ways to communicate with deaf families, Hill said.
“Part of the reason why it took (the family) so long to find out about what was happening at school is they just couldn’t communicate with the school at all, and the school was taking steps to not communicate with them,” Hill said. “All the systems that the district had in place to effectively communicate with this family and serve them failed. But we think they’re taking the complaint seriously and trying to fix the issues where they know now that they have them.”
Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.
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