Special education students in a Puyallup elementary school were sprayed with a water bottle and blocked from leaving an isolation room by staff, who were found to have violated school district policy, according to a lawsuit.
Katherine and Matthew James sued the Puyallup School District on behalf of their 14-year-old son, who has autism and various disabilities, in Pierce County Superior Court on Jan. 27. The lawsuit alleges he was abused by at least three teachers’ aides at Fruitland Elementary School during the fourth and fifth grades, between 2023 and 2025, and “likely prior to those years.”
“The district’s own internal investigation found that multiple personnel engaged in threatening and abusive conduct barred by district policy against some of the most vulnerable students that they have, and this went on for months, if not longer,” attorney Michael Smith, who’s representing the James family, said in an interview Wednesday…