DENVER (CN) — A former middle school principal sued Denver Public Schools in federal court Tuesday claiming the district retaliated against him after he spoke to media about his struggle to expel a student who had been charged with attempted murder, all in the wake of a nearby school shooting.
Kurt Dennis, former principal of McAuliffe International School claims Denver Public Schools and the school board violated his rights to free speech and due process after he was forced to keep a student in class who had been charged with murder.
Between the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and the shooting at East High School in Denver this past March, school gun violence has directly impacted more than 356,000 students nationwide.
After 17-year-old Austin Lyle was expelled from Overland High School for carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, he enrolled at East High School with a safety plan requiring daily pat-downs. On March 22, Lyle shot two administrators, fled the county and took his own life.
With McAuliffe three miles away, Dennis sought to have a student with a similar safety plan at his school removed from class and placed in remote learning.
"The student at McAuliffe was criminally charged with attempted murder after entering a liquor store to rob it, and shooting the clerk behind the counter,” Dennis says in his complaint. “The Denver Police Department recommended that this student should not be permitted on campus. The police recommendation indicated that they believed this student, if allowed on campus, would be a danger to other students, administrators, faculty and staff."
Although Denver Public Schools requires students on certain safety plans to be patted down, Dennis said administrators did not receive proper training to search for weapons nor did they have a plan in place if they found a student armed.
When the school district denied his request to place the student in remote learning, Dennis attempted to expel the student. The school district blocked the expulsion, prompting Dennis to speak to a TV news reporter about the issue.
“Seeing the risk of a similarly devastating occurrence at McAuliffe International, Mr. Dennis felt that DPS families needed to know the extent to which DPS had forced this dangerous policy on its staff and students,” Dennis says in his complaint.
Dennis did not reveal the identity of the student, but it was “widely known by other students and faculty throughout the school," he says, adding, “In response, the defendants retaliated against Mr. Dennis for exercising his free speech rights by terminating his employment."
In addition, Dennis says school board members made defamatory statements, calling him a white supremacist and damaging his ability to obtain another job.
Dennis says the school board mischaracterized his use of a district-sanctioned de-escalation room as an “incarceration room in an effort to turn public opinion against Mr. Dennis,” and claimed he only placed students of color in seclusion.
“I look forward to having my case heard in court,” Kurt Dennis said in a statement. “We recognize that this will be a long process but are resolute in seeking justice.”
Dennis began teaching English as a second language in 2000 in nearby Westminster and began working in Denver Public Schools in 2011 where he helped design, establish and grow McAuliffe.
Dennis is represented by civil rights attorney David Lane of the Denver-based firm Killmer Lane & Newman.
A representative for Denver Public Schools declined to comment.
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