Monroe School District is facing a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination

MONROE, Wash. — Families in the Monroe School District (MSD) have filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, bullying and harassment.

The details in the 50-page lawsuit explain what families say happened to their children at multiple schools. Parents are angry and KOMO News spoke Friday with two families who left MSD because of what they call systemic racism.

“I felt pretty unsafe and scared to go to school every day because everyone was kind of threatening me, like, ‘I’m going to beat you up,’” former Monroe student Ahmed Abozed explained.

Abozed was just 10 years old when he said he faced constant discrimination at his school because he was Egyptian and Muslim. He felt so unsafe that he eventually left MSD two years ago.

“I told a lot of the teachers and counselors about what was going on and I didn’t feel safe. They said they would keep me safe. In the end that didn’t happen and I still got into several fights,” he added .

A new lawsuit filed by several families, including Ahmed’s, alleges that children in the district were regularly called racially derogatory names, attacked and abused while school leaders did little to protect them.

Junelle Lewis left her job with the district, she said, after her children also faced discrimination. She is frustrated that there is reportedly still little racial diversity among district staff.

“Every time I think about what my children have been through, I have to deal with it – the defensiveness of now unlearning them in schools where they are accepted,” she cried.

Attorney James Bible claims families have struggled for years to get the district to address their concerns, but without success.

“What is your ultimate demand for the district?” KOMO’s Jackie Kent asked Bible.

“Staff and administrators and the like need to be held accountable if they know of such actions, whether that means losing their jobs… I think it would be justified in these circumstances,” he explained.

In lengthy video testimony, several families allege that staff allowed their young children to be ridiculed or harassed because of race, and others ridiculed children’s sexual identities.

Families say it will take some time for their children to recover from their trauma, but they are shining a light on those experiences in hopes of preventing it from happening again.

“I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through in the Monroe School District,” Abozed said.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seeking damages and attorneys’ fees in an unspecified amount.

In response, a spokesperson for MSD sent KOMO News the following statement: “We are aware of the lawsuit filed by some families against the Monroe School District and certain individual staff members regarding their students’ experiences in the district. The district has investigated the allegations. when these families filed the claims. Due to legal requirements for student confidentiality, we cannot release specific information about these claims and related investigations. Additionally, because the district is now the subject of a lawsuit against the district by our legal counsel, we have been advised not to comment further.”