A former Eureka High School student has filed a lawsuit against the Rockwood School District, alleging that a former principal and associate principal mishandled his mental health situation, discriminated against him because of his race and gender and violated district policy concerning a disciplinary action against him.
Ethan Sandhu, who is now 18 and no longer lives in the district, said in a lawsuit filed on Sept. 14 in St. Louis County Circuit Court that Eureka High officials ignored his mental illness after he used an Instagram post to fake his own suicide and unfairly punished him in 2018 when a female student complained about his behavior.
Sandhu was given an in-school suspension after a fellow student claimed he was harassing her, and the district eventually switched him to primarily homebound classwork, permitting him to return to campus only for final exams under supervision, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks to correct Sandhu’s disciplinary record and to prevent other mentally ill minority students from receiving similar treatment, it said.
Sandhu’s father is Indian-American and his mother is Caucasian, according to the lawsuit.
“There are a couple of objectives to the lawsuit,” said Daniel J. Rhoads of the Rhoads Firm, who is representing Sandhu. “One is we would like to have some sort of recognition that what happened to Ethan was not fair to him. I think the bigger picture, and I know the family is very concerned about this, is that the district takes some sort of lesson, so the episode is not repeated to another student.”
Rockwood officials said they would not comment on the allegations in the lawsuit. Court papers show the district and former Eureka High principal Charles Crouther and assistant principal Ann Gilman, who were named in the case, denied the lawsuit’s claims and have asked that the case be dismissed.
According to court documents, a girl whom Sandhu believed to be his friend complained he was pestering her at school during his sophomore year. The student’s complaints against Sandhu included him asking her to the homecoming dance, encouraging students to vote for her for homecoming court, tugging her hair, making a fake marriage proposal in the cafeteria, answering “sure” when a fellow student asked Sandhu if he was dating her and him repeating the girl’s name until she acknowledged him.
On Oct. 28, 2018, Gilman gave a three-day in-school suspension to Sandhu after the girl allegedly told Gilman that Sandhu had “victimized” and “sexually harassed” her, the lawsuit said.
Sandhu said in the suit that he wrote a “confession” after being convinced by Gilman that he was guilty of sexual harassment.
A week before the punishment, Sandhu had posted about his fictitious suicide on social media, and Gilman became aware of the post and met with him. He told her he was not suicidal, and she allegedly said she was only sparing him punishment then because the post was not made at school, the suit said.
The day after receiving the three-day suspension, Sandhu told his mother, “If I get in real trouble over this, I’m going to walk out and kill myself.”
His parents took him to an emergency room after the statement, and he spent the next three days in an adolescent psychiatric ward, the suit said.
When Sandhu’s mother met with school officials about his return to school and asked that he not be required to serve the in-school suspension after the hospital stay, one administrator allegedly said, “Kids get sick.”
Ultimately, Sandhu served the suspension, according to the lawsuit.
In January 2019, the suit says Crouther told Sandhu that he should “behave as if he was under a restraining order” while at school, and the former principal also allegedly said Sandhu’s behavior outside of school was not his concern.
However, when it was discovered Sandhu sent an email to the student who claimed he was harassing her, Crouther allegedly punished Sandhu and coded the email as “sexual harassment,” the suit claims.
In February 2019, school administrators changed Sandhu’s schedule to separate him from his accuser, and later that year, Sandhu was placed in homebound instruction as his parents searched for an alternative way for him to complete high school, the suit said.
The family moved out of the district after the 2018-2019 school year, according to the suit.
The suit claims the district’s and principals’ treatment of Sandhu were discriminatory because the female student’s complaints were taken more seriously than Sandhu’s mental state and that the “concerns of the white family were given more than their due weight, while the very real concerns of the mixed-race family were given utterly no weight.”
Rhoads said the family believes race played a part in the district’s actions.
“I do think (race) was a factor. What I wrote in the petition is what we believe and stand by,” Rhoads said. “There was another student involved, and I’m sympathetic to what the other student experienced here. I think when the facts come out what they will show is the whole thing should have been handled better by the district. The policies were in place that would have allowed the district to handle this better, which would have resulted in less harm to all students involved.”
Rockwood policies
Rockwood has numerous social and emotional health supports, according to a release from district officials.
The district has trained social workers and counselors as well as a student-led program that focuses on leadership to stop bullying in schools.
Rockwood also receives suicide prevention training from regional nonprofits such as Alive and Well Communities St. Louis, according to the release.
“We have a great student service department because of the position of the (Board of Education members) and their support for making sure all students are well,” said Terry Harris, Rockwood’s executive director of student services. “We have social workers. We have counselors. I can partner with all these different organizations. We are explicitly talking about suicide, mental health and wellness and how to make it so our students have the resources we need.”
Harris said even with the ongoing training that employees receive, it can be difficult to recognize when someone is struggling with mental health issues or having suicidal thoughts.
“If kids or adults are not openly presenting that there is an issue, what we are asking for adults in the school system to do is read people’s minds,” Harris said. “In the midst of all the resources that we have, it is really hard when you don’t know. We heavily focus on our students’ mental well-being. There is not one teacher in the Rockwood School District that you can talk to and say, ‘How do you check in on kids?’ and not get an answer. They all have a story about how they check in on kids.”
Harris said one example of how seriously the district takes suicidal statements came at the end of a physical education class.
“There was a kid playing basketball and right before the bell rang, the kid took a shot and missed,” Harris said. “Everybody laughed, and he said, ‘Oh, no, I’m going to kill myself.’ A teacher heard that and sent the kid to the counselor to have a conversation about it.
“Some people may say that is a little bit extreme. Clearly, the kid was joking. But we are not taking anything for granted. The worst thing to do is say, ‘I didn’t think that was that important. I didn’t see the big deal.’ Here is the thing – you don’t see the big deal because for you, it may not be a big deal. For the kid, it may be a big deal. That is the core of the training that we offer. It is not for you to determine what a big deal is or not.
“If a kid says they want to hurt themselves, we take them seriously. If a kid says, ‘I was joking,’ then we tell them we don’t joke like that.”