The former Eldorado High School teacher who was beaten nearly to death and sexually assaulted in her classroom by a student is suing the Clark County School District for failing to keep her safe.
The teacher, identified in the lawsuit filed in Clark County District Court on Wednesday as Sade Doe, alleges that CCSD knew about violence at Eldorado and elsewhere in the district well before one of her students attacked her after school in April 2022.
She had been a teacher for less than two years. Eldorado was her first job out of college.
“During the interview process with CCSD, Plaintiff was told that Eldorado High School had a good working environment, and was never told anything negative about the school or about any security or safety concerns at the school,” the lawsuit said.
The teacher was in her classroom for mandatory after-school office hours on the day of the attack when her student, Jonathan Eluterio Martinez Garcia, stopped by about 10 minutes after dismissal, ostensibly to talk about missing assignments.
The complaint said that nobody was around to see Garcia roaming the halls or to see or hear the lengthy, brutal attack as it happened. A janitor found the battered teacher about an hour and a half after the assault started.
Police arrested Garcia the same day.
The complaint said that Eldorado did not follow its own policies requiring students to leave the building after school and return through the main entrance to obtain a hall pass if they wanted to be on campus after the final bell for teachers’ office hours.
The complaint said the teacher was not made aware of Garcia’s “dangerous and/or violent tendencies” after a school counselor scheduled a conference with the boy’s parents to discuss his “academic progress and behavior concerns” just two weeks before the attack — a conference that his family did not show up for, the complaint added.
And, the complaint said, nobody from the district told the teacher about known serious safety or security issues at Eldorado and elsewhere in CCSD, or formally trained her on safety against violent students.
Sade Doe came to Las Vegas in summer 2020, just after graduating from college in Washington state. She applied for teaching jobs in Arizona and Nevada because, the lawsuit said, she “wanted to live somewhere sunny.” She accepted a job teaching English, speech and debate at the east Las Vegas school after interviewing over the phone, and spent her first year teaching virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fall 2021, when she started teaching in person, the teacher was assigned about 200 sophomore and junior students, or about 40 students per class.
Garcia was in her fourth-period English class. He was 16 at the time, but charged as an adult. The assault started not long after the teacher unlocked her classroom door to let him inside. He followed her to her desk and strangled her from behind with a cord.
According to the complaint, and as the teacher relayed herself at Garcia’s sentencing hearing last June, he went on to beat, kick, stomp and cut her. He banged her head on the linoleum floor and crushed her under heavy classroom furniture, and there was evidence that the victim also had been sexually assaulted. She said she suffered lingering physical and psychological effects. She no longer works at CCSD.
“Plaintiff kept asking Mr. Garcia what she did and, at one point, Mr. Garcia told Plaintiff that, although he liked Plaintiff and she was his favorite teacher, a part of him also hated teachers, all teachers must die, and he needed to get revenge on all teachers. Plaintiff recalls Mr. Garcia saying something about having ‘multiple personalities,’ ” the complaint stated. “Desperate to stay alive, Plaintiff told Mr. Garcia that she would quit, would never be a teacher again, and that she would not tell anyone what had happened. Mr. Garcia called her a liar and continued punching and kicking Plaintiff.”
Garcia pleaded guilty last year to attempted murder, attempted sexual assault and battery with a deadly weapon resulting in serious bodily harm.
He was sentenced to 16 to 40 years in prison. Nevada Department of Corrections online records show that he is currently serving his time at Lovelock Correctional Center, an adult facility in rural Northern Nevada.
CCSD has invested tens of millions of dollars in new security measures districtwide in the aftermath of the incident, including badge-style panic buttons, single points of entry onto campuses, fencing, and upgraded surveillance cameras.
Eldorado was one of the first schools to get added features. The price tag just at Eldorado, which is about 50 years old, was about $26 million.
The lawsuit names the district, former Superintendent Jesus Jara and Eldorado Principal Christina Brockett as defendants. It said it is seeking damages exceeding $50,000, and it requested a jury trial.
A district spokesman said CCSD does not comment on pending litigation.
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