HUNTINGTON – The mother of a 6-year-old nonverbal child has sued the Cabell County Board of Education claiming her son was belittled, ignored and deprived of food and water by school employees and injured on their watch.
O.W., as parent of G.Y., filed her complaint February 12 in federal court against the Cabell County BOE as well as employees Ronald Mayes, Amy Gibson-Clay and Deborah Christian and other possible defendants.
According to the complaint, O.W.’s son is a disabled nonverbal autistic student who attends Southside Elementary School in Huntington. He is now 7, but he was 6 at the time of the incidents in the complaint.
She says her son requires assistance with daily living activities, requires constant supervision to ensure he is not participating in unsafe activities, is not toilet trained, wears a pull-up that needs changed regularly and has a history of chronic constipation.
Despite her son being in the kindergarten class at Southside in a self-contained classroom, O.W. says the school board did not hire staff trained to work with special needs students.
The complaint says Mayes, a former cosmetologist, was a long-term substitute teacher who does not have a degree in teaching or special education and does not have a teaching certification in autism.
Early in the 2022-23 school year, O.W. says her son began demonstrating compulsory masturbatory behavior that increased as his time at Southside continued. She also says her son began atypically exhibiting extreme frustration and agitation when walking into the school that included kicking, screaming, stomping his feet and throwing objects.
She says he was sent home from school many times for unknown reasons and many times smelling of urine. She says he also began experiencing night terrors at home.
On October 12, 2022, she says she received a call from Gibson-Clay, an aide, saying her son had cut his finger and was “bleeding everywhere.” When she arrived at school, her son was rushed to her car with a lacerated and broken finger. Christian, a substitute teacher, was in G.Y.’s class that day. The complaint says Christian does not have a degree in special education.
The mother says she has viewed video footage of the moments leading up to and following her son’s injury that day. She says Christian and the aides in the classroom were not engaging or working with her son. She says he was walking around the room aimlessly, and she says he was permitted to slide across the floor when he apparently jammed his finger into an exposed crack between the floor and wall.
After the surgery to repair his finger, G.Y. was prescribed antibiotics. But his mother says the school would not give him the medication, so she had to go to school each day to do so.
The following month, she says her son came home with a bruise near his groin area. And the month after that, she says he came home with a large scratch near his groin area. She says the defendants would have seen either if they were properly toileting him and changing his pull-up.
On December 21, 2022, the mother said she was called the West Virginia State Police to tell her Mayes had accused her abuse of her son after Mayes said he had “closely examined G.Y.’s genitals and rectum.” As a result, the boy was subjected to an intrusive physical exam, but child protective services found no evidence she had abused or neglected her son.
She says Mayes knew the report was false and was retaliatory after she raised concerns about her son’s treatment at school.
After retaining counsel, O.W. says she was able to view a single day of her son in the classroom.
“On the nearly seven and half hours of video, O.W. saw that her child was ignored, shoved, made fun of, denied food and deprived of water by the defendants Ron Mayes, Amy Gibson-Clay, Jane Doe 1 and John Doe 2,” the complaint states. “Mayes, Gibson-Clay and Does 1 and 2 left G.Y. in the pull-up O.W. sent him to school in for the entire day, leaving him unchanged for more than eight hours.
“G.Y. was so neglected that he was permitted to spend the vast majority of the day walking around the room and masturbating in the corner while other children watched. G.Y. was only given parts of his breakfast and lunch.”
She says the video showed her son approaching the individual defendants throughout the day who were eating in front of him, but she says they “cruelly pushed him away, barked ‘no’ at him and made statements that he was not getting their food.”
“G.Y.’s hunger was so obvious that at one point he pulled an empty food wrapper from the trash can,” the complaint states. “Gibson-Clay took the wrapper from him swiftly and said, ‘Nice try.’” She says the defendants in the video spent most of the day talking to each other or using their cell phones. She says Mayes spent most of the day sitting at his computer.
She says her son was the only student in the classroom who wasn’t talked to by staff other than to be scolded, adding Gibson-Clay called him “a mean one” and said his attempts to reach for food were “unacceptable.”
O.W. says other students in the classroom were mistreated and neglected such as by being forcefully held in chairs or allowed to scoot on their face across the floor. She also says there were times when all of the defendants left the classroom leaving the special needs students unattended.
“After watching videos of the individual defendants mistreating G.Y. and his classmates, defendant CCBOE continued to insist that nothing improper had occurred and allowed the individual defendants to continue working with special needs students,” the complaint states.
O.W. accuses the defendants of negligence, disability discrimination in violation of the West Virginia Human Rights Act and loss of filial consortium. She also accuses the school board of negligent hiring/retention, negligent training/supervision, disability discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, violation of the Rehabilitation Act and violating her son’s constitutional rights. She also accuses the individual defendants of civil battery and civil assault as well as claiming a tort or outrage.
She seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, economic damages, non-economic damages, court costs, attorney fees, pre- and post-judgment interests and other relief.
O.W. is being represented by Kayla S. Reynolds and Ryan McCune Donovan of Hissam Forman Donovan Ritchie in Charleston.
The Cabell County Board of Education has been involved in several similar lawsuits in recent years.
Earlier this month, the mother says her 4-year-old was punished by board employees who held the child in a bathroom at Spring Hill Elementary while the child struck the door and screamed to be released.
In early 2023, the board was sued by the parents of a non-verbal Huntington High student after the student was allegedly verbally and physically abused by staff members. Later in 2023, it was sued again by a former special needs student who claimed he was sexually abused by a Cabell Midland teacher. Then, parents of another Huntington High special needs student sued the board after claiming he also was verbally and physically abused by staff members.
In 2022, the board was sued after some Huntington High School students were allegedly forced to attend a religious revival at the school. That case was settled late last year. In addition, it was sued in 2021 over alleged inconsistencies in COVID-19 protocols.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 3:24-cv-0070
