Family sues Bergen County school district over photo of daughter shared by other students

The mother of a former eighth grader at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Wyckoff is suing the district, saying a pornographic image of their daughter was distributed by two other students.

The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court on May 3, said the Wyckoff school district failed to keep the student safe by not stopping the image from being passed around and allowed the image to be placed on Zoom during a March 2021 school board meeting.

The suit names the Wyckoff Board of Education, Superintendent Kerry Postma, Assistant Superintendent Grace White, former Eisenhower Middle School Vice Principal Christopher Giordano and Suzanne Dobson, a social worker and anti-bullying specialist in the district.

This lawsuit is similar to one filed by the victim's mother in 2022. The Board of Education moved to dismiss the suit, and then the family withdrew it.

"The lawsuit is frivolous and the allegations are false," a board spokesperson said. "The plaintiff filed a lawsuit regarding the same matter two years ago, and, before the court ruled on the board’s motion to dismiss it, the attorney for the plaintiff withdrew the complaint. Because the board did nothing wrong here, it fully expects to prevail in this matter."

An attorney for the plaintiffs declined to comment.

The student, who is now 16 and lives out of state, was pressured into lifting her shirt and showing her breasts on FaceTime by two other male minor students, one of whom attended Franklin Avenue Middle School, the lawsuit said. One of the students took a screenshot of the image and sent it out to other students, it said.

The complaint said the girl's father was made aware of the image the day it was distributed and contacted Giordano and Dobson to handle it. He provided the pair with details and the names of the students he believed had the image.

A harassment, intimidation and bullying investigation was started by district employees, including the assistant superintendent, but the suit said Postma waited 15 days to open the investigation. After the investigation, the students who distributed the victim's image were required to do educational counseling on the dangers of sexting, social media and the obligation to report that conduct.

One of the individuals also had to complete an individual counseling session with a guidance counselor at the middle school.

The lawsuit said one of the students who pressured the victim into exposing herself was never disciplined, even though he was supposed to go through the sexting counseling, and the student who recorded the call was also never disciplined. According to the complaint, the victim faced consequences similar to those of the other students despite being the victim.

The suit said the family learned there were more copies of the image of the victim that hadn't been destroyed and were still going around the school. The image was also shared by the mother of one of the disciplined male students at the March 29, 2021, virtual Board of Education meeting during a closed executive session to discuss the photo's distribution, the lawsuit said.

In the board's motion to dismiss the first complaint, board attorney Stephen Fogarty said White signed an affidavit that included a three-page letter sent to parents. The affidavit included a redacted copy of the screenshot taken from a board Zoom meeting. Fogarty said the description of the "explicit picture" mentioned in the lawsuit is inaccurate.

Postma reached out to Wyckoff police to tell them about the school board incident, but the lawsuit said the superintendent "omitted crucial details" such as what happened during the meeting, who the parent was and the specific time it was shared.

The family said the district failed to stop the distribution of the photo, allowing employees to share the image. The suit said the image was included in an affidavit prepared by White as part of her HIB investigation and was also given to Fogarty. The lawsuit said this "retraumatized" the victim. An assistant prosecutor eventually helped destroy the photo in Fogarty's files.

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According to the complaint, the family filed an Open Public Records Act request with the Wyckoff Police Department to see if there was a record of a call from the Board of Education about the March incident and with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office to see if the district or police contacted the office.

A board employee confirmed that she still had a copy of the image five months after March and refused to delete it, the lawsuit said. The suit said the defendants failed to prevent the dissemination of the picture but "actively condoned" it as well.

The family said the victim continues to suffer "severe physical harm and trauma."

The suit said the defendants violated the Law Against Discrimination regarding sexual harassment, gender discrimination and public accommodation discrimination, were negligent, allowed the negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and had negligent supervision and training,

The victim is seeking compensatory, consequential and punitive damages, the cost of the suit and the attorney fees. The family also is asking the defendants to take several actions to stop incidents like what the victim went through.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Wyckoff NJ schools face lawsuit over photos of former student