Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 has reached a $115,000 settlement with a family who sued the district over claimed civil rights discrimination after the student was believed to have held a paper gun for a school project.
The settlement was reached and approved by the school board last month. In the settlement agreement, the district denies all wrongdoing, liability or that the student suffered damages. The district also states that the settlement “shall not be construed as an admission of liability, fault, wrongdoing or damages.”
Lee Sain filed the federal lawsuit in 2024 on behalf of his son against District 47, Lundahl Middle School principals, the city of Crystal Lake and Crystal Lake police officers for an unspecified amount in damages.
The child is identified as an African American minor, and the lawsuit asserted that defendants “intentionally discriminated” against him “by knowingly failing to address the racial bullying, intimidation, discrimination, harassment and abuse” against the boy stemming from a “prop” gun he made for a school project that prompted a police report.
The lawsuit stemmed from an incident that happened Dec. 7, 2023, after the student had a “toy gun that “was made out of paper” and used as part of a school project for which “the teacher congratulated him,” according to the suit.
The student created the paper gun as “a prop for a 1920s skit in social studies class,” according to the lawsuit, which said that later that day, an anonymous report was made by another student.
Police were called to investigate and, according to the complaint, they also searched the boy’s home without a “valid warrant” and “without probable cause,” during which the boy was “seized,” according to the complaint.
The case is still ongoing for the city of Crystal Lake and a police officer, according to court records, though U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow dismissed the claims of false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the police department in December.
By the day after the incident, “both students and staff members confirmed the perceived gun was a prop made out of paper,” according to the suit, and the boy’s mother was informed that “no weapons, real or fake, are to be allowed in the school setting for any reason.”
But the harassment and bullying by students that followed “was so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive” that it deprived the boy of access to educational opportunities, the attorney representing Sain, Danielle Pinkston, wrote in the complaint.
According to the suit, the boy was “required to stay home until an investigation at the school could be done to ensure the safety of all students.”
The student had experienced multiple “racially charged incidents” and called “a racial slur” dating back to 2021, according to the complaint. In a court document filed by attorneys representing District 47, the district said the minor was not a student of District 47 at that time.