Lawsuit filed after Clovis teacher allegedly cut chunk of hair from fifth-grade student
A Clovis Unified teacher accused of chopping off a 5 inch-long chunk of hair from a fifth-grade female student is being sued by the student’s mother for battery and negligence.
Nicole Boragno filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Fresno County Superior Court against her daughter’s teacher Steve Schmall and the Clovis Unified School District. She is seeking damages to be determined at trial.
Boragno and attorney Kara Hitchcock said the fifth-grader, who was 10 at the time, was traumatized by what happened inside Schmall’s classroom on Sept. 25 at Freedom Elementary.
“Plaintiff has suffered injuries, including personal injury and emotional pain. She has been made to endure great mental suffering,” the lawsuit states.
Hitchcock describes how Schmall was walking around the classroom holding a pair of scissors and asking students, “Who wants a haircut?”
“He moved around the room for a while, pretending to snip the hair of various students. When Schmall got behind Plaintiff, who has long hair, he actually did cut her hair — specifically, a section approximately five inches long and two inches wide,” Hitchcock wrote in the lawsuit.
Students gasped as they saw the chunk of hair fall to the ground, Hitchcock said in an interview.
Schmall could not be reached for comment Friday.
“He never apologized,” Hitchcock said. “In fact, when it happened he did not even acknowledge it. He just took her hair and threw it in the trash.”
The student’s parents complained to the school and the district began an investigation. Schmall was put on leave.
Clovis Unified spokeswoman Kelly Avants said Friday she was not sure how much she could reveal about any possible disciplinary action taken against the teacher, “without breaking the employment confidentiality laws.”
She did add that at the time of the incident “the district publicly expressed our deep concerns over the incident, and commitment to use the resources available to us under the law to address it.”
Schmall came back to teach at Freedom in November. The student, however, didn’t want to be around him. The district suggested she could transfer to another school in the district, but the student didn’t want to leave her friends at the school she had attended since kindergarten.
Ultimately, she transferred to another Clovis school. “The teacher is the one who made a mistake, and the student is the one who gets punished,” Hitchcock said.
Hitchcock said the family chose to file the lawsuit because the district rejected the claim it filed against Clovis Unified.
“Some things are wrong and they need to be righted,” she said. “We can’t let this get swept under the rug.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 4:41 PM.
