A former student at Canton High School has filed a lawsuit against Plymouth Canton Community Schools, claiming they mishandled her complaints of stalking and harassment by an ex-boyfriend.
According to the lawsuit, the 17-year-old girl was stalked, bullied and sexually harassed for 16 months by an ex-boyfriend during her freshman and sophomore years at Canton High School. He allegedly called her a slut in the hallways at school and told her that he hoped she would get raped.
The girl and her mother made 10 complaints to school regarding the harassment and stalking, but they never took care of the issue. One school officer allegedly said that “kids will be kids” and another told the mother that he thought her daughter was lying.
After the girl found the word “whore” written in dog feces on her parent’s garage door and the house egged and covered in toilet paper, she finally had enough. She attempted to kill herself days later by swallowing a bottle of Adderall pills.
“Why won’t (he) leave me alone?” she cried out in the hospital, where she hallucinated for days after her suicide attempt. “I can’t take it anymore. Everyone hates me. I am a whore. They need to know my 13 reasons why.”
The girl and her mother filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights last year after they were told not to file another false claim. The girl hasn’t been able to go back to school because of anxiety and stress.
“The fact that this district would let this kind of egregious harassment and bullying go on for as long as it has is astonishing to me in this day and age,” said the girl’s attorney, Jennifer Salvatore, adding the lawsuit was a last resort for her clients. “They made 10 complaints. They had to get a PPO (personal protection order). I think sometimes litigation is the only way to call institutions’ attention to the fact that they have a legal responsibility here and that kids’ lives are at stake.”
Salvatore added that it’s unclear whether or not any disciplinary action was taken against the boy who allegedly tormented her.
School district officials declined to comment about the lawsuit, saying they couldn’t talk about issues related to any specific student.
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