BOCA RATON, Florida -- The parents of a seven-year-old Boca Raton boy who has autism are suing the Palm Beach County School District and the superintendent of schools for negligence and negligent supervision after they say the boy was sexually assaulted by other students.
"Personally I think it's actually deplorable what happened here," said Jamie Sasson, attorney for parents.
Sasson says when it was time for recess at Addison Mizner Elementary School in Boca Raton, one of the boys, a second grader, went through a nightmare on the playground.
Two other boys his age told him if he wanted to be a member of their "secret club," he would have to perform sex acts on them.
The parents claim it happened at least three times in a structure on the playground known as "the cave" and also inside a school bathroom.
"The child was molested by the other students. Horrific, horrific things happened. Sexual activity that no kids should be doing," Sasson said.
The lawsuit claims because the boy has autism, he was supposed to have a school employee with him all times and he was supposed to be supervised at all times.
But that didn't happen.
"If you're gonna take a special needs child at your school, you better have the precautions and be set up to do that. They failed the child," Sasson explained.
To make matters worse, Sasson says when school officials learned what happened, they never notified the parents. The parents found out when their seven-year-old son told them.
"I don't think they're properly training these teachers how to deal with these type of things. If you're a teacher, you have to be on guard all day long watching these children. That's the bottom line. I don't think that's happening," Sasson said.
According to Sasson, the parents pulled their son out of Addison Mizner Elementary as soon as they learned what happened.
He now attends another elementary school in Boca Raton. He'll be a third grader as of August.
School district officials said they had not been served with a copy of the lawsuit and they had not had a chance to review it yet.