NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) – A local school board wants out of a lawsuit brought against it and others over the suicide of a student at the New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy.
The Orleans Parish School Board wrote in an Aug. 31 motion to dismiss that the parents of the student even attached the NOMMA cadet-parent handbook, which includes a declaration that the school is a type 2 charter high school.
“Type 2 means that NOMMA’s charter contract is with the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education,” Orleans Parish schools wrote.
According to the complaint, V.A. was student at NOMMA from August 2018 until the time of her suicide on November 4, 2020. V.A., a 16-year-old female, was already struggling psychologically after she had been raped on July 4, 2019, along with struggling from isolation due to the COVID-19 shutdown and bullying by classmates, the suit says.
V.A. told one of her teachers, Voltaire Alexander Casio, a biology teacher at NOMMA, about all these things, the suit says. Casio never reported any of these things to V.A.’s parents or the school administration, the suit alleges.
Shortly before V.A.'s death, Casio asked a counselor to send V.A. suicide prevention material, and the counselor never reported it to V.A,'s parents or the school administration, the suit says. On Nov. 4, 2020, V.A. committed suicide.
Casio is also named as a defendant. Orleans Parish says it had no responsibility or authority to direct or supervise Casio or anyone else at NOMMA.
Type 1 charter schools are overseen by local school boards but Type 2 schools like NOMMA have their charter with the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the motion to dismiss says.
“There are no specific factual allegations in the Complaint indicating that OPSB had any involvement or knowledge regarding V.A.,” the motion says. The only allegations against OPSB are the conclusory allegations that OPSB oversaw, supervised, directed, set guidelines for, provided training, or controlled NOMMA, which are legally incorrect…”
The plaintiffs are represented by Casey DeReus of Baer Law. OPSB’s lawyer is John Etter of Rodney & Etter.