Late last week, Seattle Public Schools was slapped with notice of a $45 million lawsuit from the family of Ebenezer Haile, who was shot to death in the halls of Ingraham High School. Haile’s family claims SPS’ “naive approach to school safety” led directly to the death of the 17-year-old in November 2022.
That tort claim comes on the heels of another, filed on behalf of a former Garfield High School basketball player seeking damages for alleged sexual abuse by two men affiliated with that school’s coaching staff while she was a student there, according to reporting by KUOW.
In the background simmer questions from yet another alleged sexual assault, this time by one student against another in a bathroom at Hamilton Middle School last spring.
In that case, a Seattle police detective asked the school district to preserve video that could have provided important evidence, according to the King County Prosecutor’s Office. But after several weeks of back-and-forth with SPS’ records officer, the detective learned that in the interim, the information he sought had automatically erased. With neither the footage, nor statements from school staff who’d seen it, prosecutors did not have enough information to hold anyone criminally accountable.
Each of these incidents would be profoundly concerning to any parent in Seattle Public Schools. They are also contributing to a spike in liability insurance rates that have more than tripled since the 2018-19 school year. And those fees are most certainly widening the gaping budget hole now forcing SPS to consider closing 20 elementary schools.
Next year, Seattle will be charged $8,848,477 in liability premiums, according to information provided by the school district. That’s 8% of its $105 million deficit, not an insignificant portion, considering the stakes.
About 90 districts participate in the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool, which covers liability claims and property damage. Rates have increased for all of them. But the amount varies, depending on a district’s size and the “losses that have been paid out,” in the words of a WSRMP spokesperson. Seattle’s increase is slightly higher than average, she said.
In 2018, former Seattle schools Superintendent Larry Nyland hinted at this scenario in a budget document that now looks painfully prescient. Seattle had just swallowed a 20% rate hike due to a “dramatic increase in sexual abuse claim payments” confronting districts across the state, Nyland told the School Board.
At the time, Seattle stood out for its efforts to prevent these problems, he said, though this period coincides with the alleged sexual abuse of the basketball player at Garfield.
On student safety, too, the district has taken “a Pollyana-ish approach,” said attorney Cheryl Snow, who is representing the family of the dead Ingraham student.
He was shot to death by a 14-year-old who posed a known threat, the legal complaint says. Just a month prior, the boy now charged with murder had brought a knife to school and threatened another student in the bathroom with a Glock-style BB gun.
By state law, Seattle had grounds to expel him then. The school district’s safety policies allow for this too. Instead, the youth was suspended for less than three days. After his return, “Nothing was done to effectively increase security, form a safety plan, or increase consequences for unlawful behavior,” the complaint charges.
Seattle school officials have pointed to soaring liability rates as one of the culprits behind their budget woes. But those costs might be more manageable if the district seriously examined the link between insurance spreadsheets, student safety and the future of Seattle Public Schools.
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