NJ Boy Forced To Eat School Lunch Outside In Winter, Lawsuit Says

BELLEVILLE, NJ — A Belleville Public Schools teacher forced a seven-year-old student to eat his lunch outside in the cold as a punishment, the boy's parents claimed in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in Essex County Superior Court, also alleges that other students and teachers at Public School #4 bullied and harassed the child over two separate school years, but district officials did nothing to help him. The child was "subjected to severe and pervasive bullying, harassment and intimidation at the hands of other students within the school and also from teachers of the school," the lawsuit states.

His parents claim that other students ridiculed him due to his Hispanic heritage and a health condition, and teachers punished him "using extreme methods," including making him eat lunch while standing in the parking lot in February of 2023. This punishment was supposedly because the boy was mocking the teacher, though his parents claim the child was just repeating what she had said.

After they reported this mistreatment, the parents said their son was subjected to further harassment and bullying, and that the district did nothing to address his poor treatment by classmates and teachers. They claim that teachers retaliated against him by giving him bad grades after his parents asked about the lunchtime punishment.

And after the boy's mother tried to speak to the principal in person about his grades, someone from the superintendent's office showed up at their home and told her she could no longer come into the building to drop him off, the parents stated.

"To this date there has been no explanation of the grades change," the lawsuit states. "It was a retaliation for raising the abusive conduct in the school and for raising the retaliation against her child."

Last October, the parents said, another student pulled the boy's pants down and he tripped and broke his nose running away from the other student. And, though the school knew that he suffered from chronic constipation, the boy's parents said he was "constantly reprimanded" for taking a longer time in the bathroom and even called out by a staff member using a megaphone so anyone could hear.

The boy was diagnosed with maladjustment disorder "due to the bullying allowed by the school and fostered by his stigmatization" and resulted in emotional and psychological harm, his parents claimed.

The lawsuit seeks a trial by jury, and alleges that the Belleville Board of Education — as well as the school, the teacher, and the township — are responsible for institutional abuse, negligence, retaliation, and failure to properly supervise and control staff.

Attorneys for the school district did not immediately return Patch's request for comment.