Stunning victory for Vegas mom who sued school district over child’s ‘pornographic’ assignment

A Las Vegas mother has sued her local school district after her 15-year-old daughter was forced to memorize and read a sexually explicit monologue for her theater class.

Candra and her husband, Terrell Evans, filed a $50,000 lawsuit last year against the Clark County School District and Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara, claiming they were guilty of “unlawful grooming and abuse of a minor” for the assignment, which they characterized as “pornographic material.” .’

They say their unnamed daughter, a student at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, was forced to perform the monologue written by a fellow student – in which a narrator came out as a lesbian and told them she wasn’t into ‘d* *ks’ loved.

The passage was so lewd that Ms. Evans’ microphone was cut off when she read it aloud at a school district board meeting last spring, and she was admonished for violating the board’s rules of decorum.

During the deposition, school administrators also acknowledged that the content was inappropriate, with one saying it was “not something I felt should have been there,” and another testifying, “I still remember the first time I read, was shocked.

“What was written was not appropriate to be read and performed in a school setting… And so it crossed the line,” the administrator said, This is reported by the American Center for Law and Justicewho in this case represented the Evans family.

District officials later decided to settle the lawsuit for $25,000 and with the understanding that the district would train teachers at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts on the regulations. The district also does not want to admit any liability in the settlement, KLAS reports.

The Evans had alleged that their teenage daughter’s theater teacher, Kelly Hawes, assigned her students in March 2022 to write monologues, which their classmates would then memorize and read aloud in front of the class.

The monologue given to their daughter involved a woman telling her ex-boyfriend that she was a lesbian and describing how she never liked his penis or had sex with him.

It “contained explicit, obscene and sexually violent material,” according to the lawsuit, which also alleged that Hawes “assisted the other student in editing their obscenely violent pornographic monologue, knowing that it would then be provided to another student to reading, memorizing and performing. in front of the class.’

Ms Evans said she heard about the assignment a month after it was carried out.

“I didn’t believe the teacher would ever give something like that to a student, so it was even more of a shock,” she said of her reaction.

“Because I had to memorize and read that, I thought it was so inappropriate.”

The concerned mother then raised her concerns about the assignment with school administrators, one of whom told her the district would handle the matter.

‘[The administrator] “empathized with them that he would be very upset if he found out that assignment had been given to his daughter,” the lawsuit said. “He told them that the plaintiffs were handling the issue better than he would and that it would not be swept under the rug. He promised that he would make sure this never happened again.

‘He otherwise agreed [the teacher] should have stopped [the teenager] as soon as she heard the first line of the monologue.’

At that point, Evans agreed to let the administrator discuss the assignment with her daughter, but only if a female faculty member was present.

But when the meeting finally took place, only the male administrator was present, she claimed.

The parents then called for another meeting with more staff members, who then “defended the obscene monologue and then blamed [the student] for reading it, stating that she could have said ‘no,’ but she didn’t.”

The lawsuit, some faculty members later said ‘came back and admitted that the assignment was not appropriate for the classroom.’

“Hawes could have prevented this pornographic material from getting into the hands of children at any time, but she refused,” the lawsuit said. ‘When we are confronted with this, [Las Vegas Academy of the Arts Principal Scott Walker] and CCSD did nothing.”

“I wanted to hear someone say, ‘Oh my god, this was so inappropriate. We’re going to fix this. This shouldn’t have happened,'” Evans explained to KLAS.

“But I didn’t hear that.”

Ultimately, the Evanses decided to escalate the matter to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, who told them to file a report with the Clark County School District Police.

The lawsuit alleged that the family did file a report, but it was falsified by an officer who “conspired with others.” Attorneys for the district later argued that no crime had ever been committed.

Disheartened by the lack of response, Evans eventually took her complaints to a school board meeting, where she attempted to read aloud from the monologue before being silenced.

As she began to read, her microphone cut out and board president Evelyn Garcia Morales told her she had used this profane language.

“For your comments,” Morales said. ‘Forgive me, we don’t use profanity. This is a public meeting; I ask for decorum.’

“If you don’t want me to read it to you, what was it like for my fifteen-year-old daughter to have to memorize pornographic material,” Evans replied.

She has since praised the settlement, saying she thinks “kids will be a lot safer with teachers like these.”

‘At the end of the day, the most important thing is that my daughter can walk away proud that she has made a change. She made a difference.”

Evans noted that her daughter had a “hard time” after being forced to read the monologue, “and we feel [the teacher] took advantage of a 15 year old who just wanted to be a good student and get good grades.

“Our daughter never wanted to be in the public eye for something like this, just like most teenagers wouldn’t want to be, so this has all been very overwhelming and not an easy journey for her,” she said.

“We’re happy to say she’s doing much better now.”

The girl graduated from high school with a weighted GPA of 4.625 and as an AP Scholar with honors.

She is now in her first year at university and is writing, singing and producing her own songs.