Three young educators at a Denver school for kids with severe behavioral issues were routinely sexually assaulted by students and ignored by administrators when they sought help, according to a new lawsuit.
The three women, recent college graduates who were passionate about working with children with special needs, said that for months they endured being groped, grabbed and choked at The Laradon School, a nonprofit with about 70 students in north Denver.
Victoria Schmidt, a paraprofessional hired in 2021, was repeatedly assaulted by a 13-year-old boy in her classroom, including the day he grabbed her in a hallway, placed her in a chokehold so tight that she feared she would die, and stuck his hand “deep inside her pants and underwear,” according to the lawsuit filed this week in Denver District Court.
The harassment started during Schmidt’s first days on the job, and other teachers reportedly told her they were not surprised since Schmidt was just the boy’s type, “young and pretty.” The abuse progressed from inappropriate sexual touching to assault, even as Schmidt asked supervisors for help, she said.
Schmidt was told by one staff member to stand still and learn to tolerate it when the boy groped her breasts and butt.
The lawsuit alleges that although Laradon provided training in how to deal with physical aggression, it offered no training in handling sexual aggression from students. All three young women allege that they were told when they were hired that the school did not admit students with histories of sexually aggressive behavior.
Laradon countered in an emailed statement to The Colorado Sun that it has “clear policies and procedures in place to respond to incidents of physical or sexual aggression quickly and consistently.”
“Despite our best efforts to reach a mutual resolution and underscore our commitment to safety, we are disappointed to learn three former staff members have filed a complaint against Laradon that greatly mischaracterizes our response to incidents that happened while they were employed with us,” the school said. The two students accused of the sexual attacks were discharged, said school officials, adding that they would not offer more detail “out of respect for the privacy of those involved.”
Laradon works with more than 400 children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities through its school, adult day program and other offerings. Its school is one of about 30 so-called “facility schools” in Colorado that serve kids with intense behavioral, mental health or special education needs with the goal of providing therapy so that they might one day return to traditional classrooms and learn to function in the workplace.
The lawsuit comes as facility schools have been under scrutiny, facing severe staffing shortages, funding shortfalls and closures at a rapid pace. About 50 facility schools have shut down in Colorado since 2004.
Schmidt was eventually transferred to another classroom, but, for months, the boy continued to “stalk her in the hallways and classrooms” and sexually assaulted her a second time on the school playground, the lawsuit says. The student was finally removed from the school in summer 2022 — after Schmidt had endured nine months of “sexual violence and threatened sexual violence,” it says.
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A few months later in another classroom, paraprofessional Kendal Lansing and teacher Brooke Swenson were suffering near daily sexual harassment perpetrated by a 12-year-old female student who had a “well-documented history of sexualized behaviors.” Schmidt was also assaulted by the same child. The girl was transferred to Laradon from Tennyson Center for Children, where she had become “too difficult to manage,” according to the lawsuit.
The girl “engaged in the kind of physical violence and property destruction that is a routine albeit disturbing occurrence at Laradon,” according to the lawsuit, and then within a few months, became sexually aggressive. She put her hands into Lansing’s and Swenson’s clothing, grabbed their breasts, punched their genitals and tried to rip off their clothes, the women allege.
When they asked their supervisors how to handle the matter, they were told to give the student “space.” If that didn’t work, they were told to physically restrain her, but that was allowed only in extreme circumstances in which people were in danger. The women say the rules of restraint were never clearly defined for matters of sexual aggression.
The abuse escalated to the point that in May 2023, the female student shoved Schmidt against a wall and tried to pull down her pants and underwear. The girl was ripped off Schmidt by other staff members. Then the girl sprinted toward Lansing, grabbing her crotch and breasts and trying to get between her legs, according to the lawsuit.
The same girl also attacked Swenson, kneeing her in the butt and trying to take off her shirt. Swenson said she had to resort to trying to hide from the girl.
Swenson, 25, said she was already in therapy to cope with the physical abuse when the sexual attacks began.
“I remember talking with my mom, and being like, ‘I don’t know what to do, Mom, I’m getting such bad hair pulls,’” Swenson said in an interview with The Sun. “She recommended cutting my hair super short so kids couldn’t grab onto it. I eventually wore a really tight knot right at the top of my head.”
Swenson said talking to the school’s administration about the abuse was “like talking to a brick wall.”
“I just wanted to be heard,” she said. “I’m a human, like, listen to me when I tell you that this is happening to me. And just believe me.”
All three women, who were paid between about $17 and $20 per hour, left their jobs at Laradon in summer 2023. None ever want to work in a facility school again, they said.
Lansing, 25, said she wanted to press charges after the 12-year-old girl violently attacked her for the second time. Even after Lansing switched classrooms, “the student stalked us through the hallways and found me and then sexually assaulted me again before we were able to lock the door to get her away from me,” Lansing said.
Laradon suggested Lansing take a leave of absence, she said. “And so I did and then I could never go back again,” she said. She now works as a speech therapist at an elementary school.
Schmidt, 25, said the experience destroyed all the passion she once had for working with children with special needs. “Now I am never going to work with kids again,” she said. “And I never want to work in special education again. I also do not even want to have kids of my own due to the stuff that happened at Laradon.”
Schmidt said her goal in suing her former employer was ultimately to protect the children.
“When you’re working with a special education child, they can sense if you’re not doing well,” she said. “And it was hard for all of us to sit there and say, ‘Let’s just cover it up. Let’s just get through it.’ Because the kids know it. They deserve a lot more than employees that can barely even function because of how much trauma they have.”
The lawsuit seeks compensation for mental health treatment, as well as for past and future emotional distress. The women’s attorney, Dan Williams, said he hoped the case would bring awareness to the state of facility schools and lead to protections for children.
“Honestly, it was just shocking to me to learn about the physical violence and the sexual violence,” he said. “They are just dealing with really fragile kids and it’s important to get things right for these kids.”