LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Legal cases that drag on for years, ultimately costing taxpayers millions.
13 Investigates is following your money as it flows through the Clark County School District — not to pay teachers or provide resources for students, but to line lawyers pockets and pay for district misdeeds.
After the largest legal settlement in CCSD history was approved earlier this year, 13 Investigates asked for a list of all the recent cases CCSD has settled.
We learned that over the last four years, the district paid $35.7 million in settlement fees and legal costs.
All of the biggest cases involve special education students — children who are non-verbal or severely limited, and could not express on their own what was happening to them.
"I, uh, I can't talk about it right now. Sorry," said an overwhelmed and emotional Tammara Tims.
The years haven't dried Tammara's tears over what her son, Hunter Howard, endured in 2017 at Kirk Adams Elementary School.
"He's non-verbal," Tammara said. "He can't communicate."
Hunter couldn't tell his parents what his fourth grade teacher was doing to him.
"When I saw it, it felt like I let my son down because I couldn't protect him," said his father, Chris Howard.
Surveillance video from the school shows 10-year-old Hunter, an autistic special needs student, being abused in the school's multi-purpose room.
Teacher Kasey Glass can be seen pushing Hunter down, then, Chris explains, "she comes over and takes his food away and throws it in the trash, and that's when everything broke loose."
Hunter becomes agitated, she repeatedly shoves and kicks a lunchroom table into him, then taunts him by dancing and running back and forth as he reaches out for her.
"At first I was mad, and then I just started crying," Tammara said.
Glass also pushes Hunter down by his head, then knocks him to the floor and kicks him in the face.
"That was probably the worst thing I've had to go through in my life," Tammara said.
Court records reveal Hunter wasn't alone.
"There were two other classmates of Hunter's," Tammara said. "If it wasn't for Hunter, they would have never found out about the other two."
The Howards and another family of a 9-year-old autistic student sued the district, the teacher, and school administrators.
The lawsuits says other teachers and school personnel witnessed Glass abusing her students, also claiming multiple other parents had complained to school leaders about it but the school concealed the information, failed to properly document the complaints and failed to discipline the teacher.
"How did the school deal with this?" Darcy Spears asked Chris Howard.
"Basically put it under the rug," he said.
Had it been handled differently, Hunter's parents say they would not have sued.
"They didn't handle it well," Tammara said. "They didn't do anybody any justice. Even the amount of money they shelled out isn't doing any justice."
After fighting the two lawsuits for years, CCSD shelled out $2.6 million in settlement costs and legal fees.
In another case involving special needs students, the district paid just over $3 million to settle three lawsuits against Forbuss Elementary special education teacher, James Doran. The cases allege a litany of physical and verbal abuse.
Court records show no one at the district told parents a criminal complaint had been filed against their child's teacher. He continued working at Forbuss until he was arrested six weeks later.
The families found out from media coverage. Doran was ultimately convicted on one count of misdemeanor battery.
Other six and seven figure lawsuits allege the district failed to act on parent complaints.
"And it ends up costing the taxpayers a fortune," said retired CCSD associate superintendent, Ed Goldman.
"Is that a fair use of our money?" Spears asked.
"No," Goldman said. "It's probably not a fair use of our money."
One school district employee is responsible for just over half of the $35.7 million the district paid out from January 2019 through April of this year.
Michael Banco, a career CCSD bus driver, is currently serving 35 years to life in prison. He is convicted of sexually assaulting special needs preschoolers in the back of his bus after school before dropping them off at home.
"He's nothing but a monster," Cherine Archer told KTNV in 2015. Archer's granddaughter was one of Banco's victims.
"These are very young victims, and he chose my granddaughter because he felt that she couldn't talk," Archer said.
Court records show Banco's crimes were caught on school bus surveillance video. Lawsuits say parents had repeatedly complained to the district that the bus was dropping off their children late, but the district "failed to investigate these reports" and never looked at the videotapes to determine the cause of the delays.
Lawsuits say other employees also reported concerns about Banco but the district failed to take any action.
"Where's the district's responsibility for quickly acting to resolve complaints before they get to the point of a lawsuit?" Spears asked Goldman.
"The ideal answer is that you establish routines that are followed regularly," Goldman said. "If a bus is late more than once or twice, or whatever it is, you follow through. You find out why."
In the largest settlements in Clark County School District history, three cases involving Banco cost taxpayers a total of $18.8 million.
"When you've got so many telltale signs that something's wrong and the district doesn't investigate, that's kind of a textbook case of gross negligence on their part," said Geoff Lawrence of Nevada Policy Research Institute. "The problem is that nobody individually owns that negligence."
Banco went to prison, but Lawrence points out that no one high up in the district lost their job over the failure to properly investigate parent complaints.
"And I think that should be a source of frustration for anybody who pays taxes in Clark County or who sends their child to a Clark County school," said Lawrence. "If the district is going to be able to absorb almost $3 billion a year in tax dollars, they should be held to a much higher standard."
The school district declined our interview request. In a statement, they say, "general reasons for settlement include assessment of potential risks and benefits and cost of litigation."
But there are some legal fights that many would agree don't make sense, like those where Lawrence says, "the district has routinely flouted the law, which is clear."
Though CCSD routinely claims to be open and transparent with the public, they also routinely refuse to release public records.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal sued the school district for withholding public records involving the alleged inappropriate behavior of then-school board Trustee, Kevin Child.
CCSD fought the case up to the Nevada Supreme Court and lost.
"The district withheld those records in clear violation of the law," Lawrence said.
It came with a price tag of nearly a quarter million dollars.
"In my mind," Lawrence said, "that's inexcusable."
There's much more to come on top of the money we've told you about in this story.
CCSD financial statements include a budget of about $60 million for what the district's lawyers believe will have to be paid in the future as a result of lawsuits that are currently pending.
Some of that is for workers compensation claims, and the rest is for outside cases, like families suing the school district.
