Photo by Savannah Schmidt
The front of the Shelby County Schools building in Alabaster on Nov. 4, 2024.
The judge in the case of a Chelsea High School student’s death has recently ordered the parents, who are the plaintiffs, to respond to the defendants’ motions to dismiss the case.
Gloria and Jeremy McQueen sued Shelby County Schools, the school board and employees of the schools that their son, Jackson McQueen, attended before he took his own life, charging that the school system did not do enough to prevent his death.
The defendants have maintained they were not liable for his death and have twice asked for the judge to dismiss the case. In response to the original motions to dismiss, the attorney for the McQueens filed an amended complaint. The defendants then filed another motion to dismiss the case.
Last month, Judge David Proctor directed the plaintiffs to “show cause” as to why “the motions to dismiss . . . should not be granted.” While the plaintiffs had filed amended complaints, they had not directly addressed the defendants’ motions to dismiss the case.
Anne Knox Averitt, the attorney representing the board, wrote in the motion to dismiss that the amended complaint, which added more details about Jackson McQueen’s time in Chelsea Middle School and High School, “almost exclusively adds facts relating to [Jackson McQueen’s] time in middle school — years before he passed away.”
Further, Averitt wrote that the complaint “even after three amendments, is a scattershot barrage of conclusory allegations that cannot be pieced together to render a viable cause of action.”
The McQueens said throughout his attendance at the schools, including Chelsea Middle School, Jackson McQueen was called names, attacked and targeted by fellow students.
The allegations made by the McQueens in a court filing on Oct. 29 charged that the system didn’t do enough to prevent their son, Jackson McQueen, from taking his life, even though employees at the schools he attended were aware he was being bullied at school.
“In the year preceding his death, Jackson had come to believe that nothing would be done to stop, or even mitigate, the bullying and abuse he endured,” the filing said. “He expressed feeling hopeless and believed everyone at the school hated him. He could not understand why this was the case, but he could not be convinced otherwise.”
For six years, Jackson McQueen was a student in the Shelby County system, starting in fourth grade at Chelsea Park Elementary until his final year as a freshman at Chelsea High School.
In April 2022, Jackson McQueen died after shooting himself at his home.
The plaintiffs’ filing says that personnel at the schools did nothing to curb the incidents, including not punishing those involved in the bullying — and in some cases disciplined Jackson McQueen for the altercations.
“The Defendants effectively cooperated in doing nothing to address the culture of bullying at their schools,” the suit said, “and their refusal to take action to protect Jackson amounts to the level of indifference giving rise to this action.”
