Alleged attack on Pierce County student at Gig Harbor camp leads to $100K payout
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- A boy was allegedly assaulted by other students at a sixth-grade camp in Gig Harbor.
- The boy’s mother sued University Place School District for negligence. UPSD denied wrongdoing.
- The district settled the case for $100,000 to avoid costly litigation, its superintendent said.
The University Place School District has settled for $100,000 a lawsuit that alleged it failed to protect a student attacked and targeted based on his perceived sexual orientation during a sixth-grade camp in Gig Harbor.
While UPSD didn’t admit to any wrongdoing, the agreement finalized Aug. 11 resolves litigation brought last year by the student’s mother, who was identified in the lawsuit as an employee of the district. As of June, she was a special education teacher in Tacoma Public Schools, court records show.
The suit filed in Pierce County Superior Court claimed that the boy was physically attacked by other students based on his gender and perceived sexual orientation while at Camp Seymour in April 2024 and bullied afterward. He withdrew from Narrows View Intermediate School following the incident, according to the filing.
The alleged attack occurred under the supervision of the school district, which was accused of negligence. The suit said that administrators, teachers and staff knew or should have known that the child was being threatened and bullied.
Attorney Thad Martin, who represented the boy’s mother in the lawsuit, said Aug. 28 that the assault had included inappropriate touching, such as buttocks slapping, and the bullying consisted of sexual teasing.
“I think it’s a good settlement,” Martin said in an interview, noting that his children had gone to the same school and camp. “I would be highly upset if my kids went through similar sexual teasing, especially when there was notice this was ongoing.”
In settling the case, the school district didn’t admit liability or wrongdoing, according to Superintendent Jeff Chamberlin, who has said that UPSD strongly disputed the claims against it.
“We take all allegations of threats and harassment seriously, including the allegations made in this lawsuit,” Chamberlin said in a statement Aug. 27. “School administrators were notified of these allegations shortly after the conclusion of camp and responded promptly by conducting a thorough investigation. Appropriate action was taken at the conclusion of the investigation in alignment with school district policy, the ages of the students involved and our findings of fact.”
Chamberlin added that the decision to resolve the suit was “a business decision” to avoid costly litigation and made by the district’s insurer, which had reached the settlement.
“The safety and well-being of students is our first priority and greatest responsibility,” he said.
The alleged victim didn’t suffer physical injuries that required medical care but has received counseling for mental health and emotional injuries, according to a June court filing from the case’s guardian ad litem, who is a court-appointed representative of a child in legal matters.
“My impression of (the victim) is that he is a smart boy with a bright future,” the representative wrote. “He went through a traumatic bullying event and received mental health care that helped him quite a bit, but not quite yet to the point where he is comfortable returning to public school, at least as of the time I met him and his mother. My sense is that over time he will continue to improve — his mother may return him to care if needed in the future.”
The suit also claimed that the boy’s mother faced retaliation from UPSD after reporting discriminatory conduct against her son. She left the district after being accused by USPD of encouraging others to sue it, which she denied doing, through a special education support group on Facebook, according to Martin. In the guardian ad litem’s filing, the boy’s court-appointed representative wrote that the boy’s mother had “suffered her own mental and emotional injuries because of the incident to her child and the impact that it had on him.”
Settlement approval paperwork shows that nearly $50,000 will be placed in an account that the boy will be able to draw from upon turning 18. The remaining funds were ordered to be split evenly between the boy’s mother for hardships and to Martin for legal fees, according to the filing.
This story was originally published September 1, 2025 at 5:15 AM.
