MONROE —A group of five families have jointly sued the Monroe School District for ignoring and failing to prevent frequent racial discrimination and harassment against their children.
The claim says racist epithets said to their children went unpunished, and employees did not protect the well-being or safety of their students.
The epithets used were spoken to children who are Black or biracial.
On Thursday, the families filed against the district in Snohomish County Superior Court. It is a tort claim that names the three superintendents prior to current superintendent Shawn Woodward and more than one dozen principals, teachers and other Monroe educators as defendants.
The district said it could not discuss specifics of incidents because of student confidentiality, it said in a statement.
“The District conducted investigations into the allegations when these families made the claims,” the district said in the statement.
Each of the incidents happened between about 2017 to about 2023.
Most of the families removed and transferred their children away from Monroe Schools because of their experiences.
There were instances where an elementary school child was singled out.
A paraeducator at the district said a child had threatened to use a gun. The child denied it to her, and their parents denied owning any guns, but the para escalated the issue to law enforcement. The fourth grader was interrogated at school for two hours. It was traumatizing, lawyers wrote.
“These actions perpetuated a stereotype among the community that people of perceived middle eastern[sic] descent are terrorists,” lawyers for the families wrote.
The prelude to the lawsuit was in mid-2022 when the families filed formal complaint to the state’s K-12 agency stating Monroe Schools violated its nondiscrimination rulebook. In 2023, that agency denied their claims. The agency, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), said the district “complied with anti-discrimination laws.”
The lawsuit filing emphasizes former Superintendent Justin Blasko caused damages by allowing a hostile educational environment.
In 2022, Blasko was effectively forced to resign, with a settlement payout, after an investigatioån found it credible that he had conducted workplace abuse.
The spark was a November 2021 incident at Monroe High where white students instigated a fight against a Black student and his friends who had spoken up against the assault of a different student. During that situation, one of the students’ fathers ultimately was charged with a hate crime for making death threats against the Black teen while on speakerphone. Days later he, his daughter and her boyfriend intimidated the Black student at his workplace.
Monroe Equity Community, an anti-racism advocacy group, delivered a catalog of Blasko’s abuses, and a big petition sought his removal. More than 100 Monroe High students held a walkout protest Dec. 13 saying they felt unsafe.
The district had two interim superintendents before hiring Woodward in 2023.
The families seek a jury trial.
The district had not filed its response into court as of Sunday, Oct. 21.
