What happens when you show a class of eighth graders a Kendrick Lamar music video? Your town is down $100,000, apparently.
This is what happened when a teacher at Vernon Center Middle School allegedly showed their class a ‘shockingly violent’ video of the rapper during a lesson.
The school board and town was later sued by a student's father for causing his child 'emotional damage'.
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The Connecticut town agreed to a $100,000 settlement after the dad, who was a police officer, filed a lawsuit due to the alleged graphic nature and negative depiction of the police force in the video.
The case was originally filed in 2022 which named the town of Vernon, the teacher who showed the video and its board of education as defendants.
It claimed the student suffered psychological distress, PTSD, and had to be transferred to another school as a result.
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Town Administrator Michael Purcaro told the CT Post that the settlement agreement with the father was ‘reached through negotiation’ and approved on the ‘advice of counsel’.
According to the lawsuit, the incident happened in 2020 and included a student who took part in a specialized school program.
You’re probably wondering which song got everyone so riled up and it’s Lamar’s 'Alright'.
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It was shown during an episode of a documentary titled Songs that Shook America.
The lawsuit states: "The video depicted police officers as murderers and contained other shockingly violent scenes and controversial statements about police officers."
According to the court documents, the teacher allegedly knew that the student’s father was a police officer before showing the video and had previously been sanctioned for showing videos to students which were not within the school guidelines.
After the incident, an assistant superintendent with Vernon Public Schools confirmed that Vernon’s Board of Education policy and state had been violated by the teacher.
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The student involved was promptly taken out of the classroom and the teacher was required to have no contact thereafter.
However, just one month later in March, the teacher allegedly used Google Classroom to ‘criticize the student’s lack of writing skills and effort on an assignment in a demeaning manner’, the lawsuit adds.
The lawsuit claims the student dealt with social withdrawal, PTSD, depression, shock, sadness, confusion and other issues due to the video, which lasted nearly an hour.
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It also claims they suffered with ‘personal embarrassment’ because their classmates ‘disassociated’ with them after the video because of their dad’s profession.
Superintendent Joseph Macary told the CT Post that the money is to be used to reimburse the family for the tuition now that the student has had to move schools.
Town of Vernon told UNILAD: "The Vernon Town Council, on the advice of counsel, unanimously approved a settlement that was reached through negotiation."
UNILAD has contacted Vernon’s Board of Education and Vernon Public Schools for comment.
Topics: Kendrick Lamar, Music, Education, Money, Police, US News
Britt Jones