(WXYZ) – A former teacher at Orchard Lake Schools St. Mary’s Preparatory High School is suing the school for wrongful termination.
The lawsuit alleges that he was fired after reporting an incident where a student was sexually assaulted by a group of students.
The school says in a statement that they do not believe they did anything wrong.
This is exactly why attorney Robert Palmer says his clients, the teacher and the student, decided they should sue.
In 2019, some of St. Mary’s Prep students allegedly played games in the shared showers they called ‘Naked Bowling’ and ‘Stanky Pretzel’, where a student sits naked on another student’s face.
According to a lawsuit by attorney Robert Palmer, his client, a junior at the time of the incident did not like the games.
The junior was the best in his class, in the National Honor’s Society, and one of the three juniors was reportedly invited to a school holiday with about 30 seniors.
One night on the way to school, the court documents read that eight boys came into his room with towels, picked him up by his arms and legs and tried to pull him out at the same time and drag him into the hall.
“And wanted to drag him to the shower room, where they put soap and water on the floor and intended to throw naked bodies against each other in ‘naked bowling’, with all the parts of their anatomy touching a reasonable thing, ‘says attorney Robert Palmer.
The day after this incident, students apparently joked that they would “get” him that night.
“The chaperones approached him who said that if you did not want to participate, you could lock your door tonight,” Palmer said, pointing out that the chaperones knew what was happening.
In court documents, the student locked his door that night and blocked it with a chair, and still students “knocked on his door and tried to break into his room.”
After the retreat, the student went to Donald Ambrose, more than 20 years a teacher at St. Mary, said.
Ambrose went to principal Bob Pyles to report the behavior. According to court documents, Pyles allegedly said ‘the severity of the sexual assault of 20 March 2019 is approximately a’ 5 ‘on a scale of 1 to 10.’
Ambrose then went to Reverend Krol, the chancellor of Orchard Lake Schools, to report the incident.
9 days later he was fired.
According to the lawsuit, Ambrose was told he was fired for not responding immediately to emails and for an incident two months earlier when he detained a student for cursing in class, an incident for which he did not before the day he was fired, reprimanded. lawsuit alleges.
Ambrose is now suing the school for “illegal retaliation and deliberate indifference”.
The student never returned to school, but rather preferred his home school. The student also sues the school.
“We do not want to take down the school, I’m sure a wonderful school. We want to see a change and we want to see the school held accountable, ‘says Palmer.
‘While it would be inappropriate to comment on the dismissal of any employee, there are several false allegations in this lawsuit. We plan to present the truth in court.
In a statement, Stephen Gross, chairman of the board of directors of Orchard Lake Schools, said:
While it would be inappropriate to comment on the dismissal of any employee, there are several false allegations in this lawsuit. We plan to present the truth in court.
The administration immediately investigated the notification of these allegations, which was under the supervision of a member of our Board. We are confident that as soon as this information is published, it will prove that the school has acted in a completely appropriate manner.
The safety of every student is our top priority at Orchard Lake Schools. We take any allegation of unsafe conduct or misconduct seriously and do not tolerate any conduct that endangers the health and safety of any student.
Stephen Gross, Chairman of the Board of Regents, Orchard Lake Schools