The complaint alleges that on March 24, 2021, the teacher screamed at, belittled, and manhandled the preschooler—pushing her to the ground, yanking her by the arm, dragging her across the classroom, and locking her alone in a dark closet. In addition, the lawsuit states the teacher threatened to call the police on the preschooler and told her that her parents wanted her to go to jail. Every incident was captured on the school's surveillance cameras.
Text messages cited in the lawsuit reveal Trinity Lutheran School's director and principal received more than four months of explicit warnings from a preschool teacher that she was approaching a mental health breakdown, including one in which she called a "meltdown at work" her "worst nightmare." The school's response, per the complaint, was to continue having come into work and sending her back to her classroom—prioritizing staffing over child safety.
The newly amended petition's most shocking allegations detail the inaction of Trinity Lutheran School administrators. The leaders failed to intervene at every step, even after the director watched recorded footage of the abuse the day it happened, the lawsuit claims, but never dropped in to the preschool classroom and made no attempts to remove the teacher. The suit also states staff repeatedly passed the preschool classroom's door while the 4-year-old was loudly crying and the teacher was screaming at her—they, too, failed to intervene.
The next morning, when the Killingsworths raised concerns, leaders at Trinity Lutheran School said nothing about what they observed on the footage—a silence the petition says lasted five days, despite Texas childcare laws requiring schools to immediately report these kinds of incidents and the principal's own testimony that parents have an "absolute right to know." Trinity Lutheran School leaders also failed to preserve material evidence, with hours of surveillance footage missing from the preschool classroom the day of the terrorizing incident, per the complaint.
"Trinity Lutheran School's leadership ignored state childcare laws and failed to stop a 4-year-old girl and her preschool classmates from being terrorized by a teacher while under the school's watch," says daycare injury attorney Russell Button of The Button Law Firm. "This is what happens when a school prioritizes its staffing schedule over a child's safety, then tries to bury the truth instead of owning up to their multiple failures that broke the law."
The case is Patrick and Mellissa Killingsworth, Individually and as parents and next friends of P.K., a minor child, vs. Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Congregation, Cause No. D230014C in the District Court of Tom Green County, Texas. A copy of the complaint can be accessed here.
About The Button Law Firm
The Button Law Firm (buttonlawfirm.com) is a Texas-based personal injury law firm dedicated to protecting children. The firm represents kids in daycare and child injury cases to help families achieve life-changing results and justice against bad daycare centers, schools, and companies that abuse children and neglect their safety. With offices in Dallas, Houston, and Midland, The Button Law Firm stands by families across the Lone Star State, working to hold negligent organizations accountable and make communities safer for every child.
SOURCE The Button Law Firm
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