Education
CPS Elementary Student Files Lawsuit Claiming Sexual Abuse and ‘Extreme’ Racial Bullying at Northwest Side School
(WTTW News)
Over three years, one of the only Black students at Wildwood IB World Magnet School allegedly faced repeated, race-based bullying and harassment from her classmates and was sexually abused by a teacher.
But the school allegedly failed to take appropriate action, and when staffers determined she posed a risk for self-harm, they didn’t inform her mother, according to a lawsuit filed by the girl’s mother against Chicago Public Schools and staff from the Northwest Side school, alleging she suffered “extreme acts” of racial bullying and sexual abuse.
“My daughter didn’t just fall through the cracks, she was placed in them,” Sherron Hinton, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of her daughter, said during a press conference Wednesday. “No school is high-performing if it crushes the spirit of Black children to keep its rankings.”
The lawsuit, filed in Cook County circuit court, names the Chicago Board of Education and four Wildwood staffers as defendants.
A CPS spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday the district is “committed to the safety and well-being of our students,” but added that CPS does not comment on pending litigation.
Hinton’s daughter — who is referred to in the lawsuit under the pseudonym “Jenny” — allegedly suffered the abuse from 2022-25 when she was in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades.
According to the lawsuit, from her first day of classes in 2022, Jenny was subjected to an “escalating campaign” of verbal and physical harassment that was reported to school staffers at every step.
She was allegedly body shamed, called the N-word, encouraged to harm herself and was at times physically abused by her fellow students. By November 2022, Jenny wrote “I feel like I’m going to die” on a classroom questionnaire, which prompted school staff to conduct a suicide ideation assessment.
Cass Casper, an attorney with the Disparti Law Group that filed the lawsuit, said staff determined she was at “moderate risk” to self-harm, but allegedly never informed Hinton.
Later that month, staff conducted a second assessment after Jenny wrote “I want to die” during a class exercise. She was again labeled as a “moderate” risk for self-harm following that assessment, Casper said. But once again, the school allegedly never informed her mother.
In December, the school implemented a safety plan for Jenny after she was struck and touched inappropriately by another student, according to the lawsuit, but again, her mother was not informed. Hinton was allegedly instead told her daughter would be starting a daily check-in routine to ensure a “normal friend dynamic,” the complaint states.
The following day, Jenny was allegedly struck again by a student who told her “I’m always trying to kill you.” When she informed staff, Jenny was instead reprimanded for “always causing drama,” the complaint states.
In a meeting between Hinton and school staff later that month, administrators allegedly brushed aside any allegations of harassment as “friendship issues” and “exaggerations.”
The complaint alleged that students were suspended from Wildwood in October 2024 after they called Jenny the “N-word,” and that she faced retaliation from her classmates for informing staff of the harassment.
Hinton said her daughter would come home crying and when she asked what was happening, Jenny would say simply that “kids were being mean.”
“When I asked the school, they would tell me things like ‘normal friend dynamics,’” Hinton said. “So that’s what I ran with, because who wouldn’t believe the adults who are supposed to be protecting your kids?”
Jenny was also allegedly abused by a pair of PE teachers named in the complaint — one of whom is accused of rubbing his genitals against her back, and a second who is accused of striking her with a clipboard.
Jenny’s abuse was first detailed in a story by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times in June. Those outlets reported that some of the students who were alleged to have bullied Jenny told their parents they’d been falsely accused.
Principal Melissa Resh also told WBEZ and the Sun-Times that there are “many sides to every story.”
According to the complaint, the “severe physical and emotional trauma” Jenny suffered led her to be hospitalized and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Beyond compensatory damages, the family said they’re seeking “systemic changes” throughout CPS as part of this lawsuit, including a requirement that parents are informed whenever school staff conduct a suicide assessment and the establishment of a separate office to investigate reports of extreme bullying.
