The elementary school in Tennessee where a 5-year-old boy with autism was accused of criminal assault (Google Maps).
A family in Tennessee is suing a school district for pursuing criminal assault charges against their 5-year-old son — a kindergartner with autism who engaged in "maladaptive behavior" after they say the school failed to provide crucial support for the child.
The boy, identified only by the initials "W.S." in court filings, required "full-time one-to-one aide and behavioral supports" in school due to his autism, according to an amended complaint reviewed by Law&Crime. The parents say they advised the Sumner County Board of Education that while their child is "high-functioning in many respects, he has serious difficulties regulating his emotions." The parents say they requested support at the start of the 2025-2026 school year, but were denied; the school district allegedly "explained that it wanted its own evidence, or data, on the need (i.e. his spiraling, injuring, or actually trying to hurt someone) before providing the modifications," according to the complaint.
Without that support, the parents say, the child engaged in "a number of events of harm to self or others" in both August and September of 2025 — all of which were "foreseeable," according to the complaint.
"By […] September 3, 2025, due to disability, W. had already engaged in pushing, shoving, or throwing objects at other children — and, understandably, those actions by W. had already greatly upset some parents of other children, whom the School District had informed," the complaint says.
The school resource officer, after speaking to parents, then "made the decision … that he would charge W., five years old with Autism, with aggravated assault, a felony," the complaint says.
The charges "didn't stick." According to the complaint, the district attorney's office reviewed the referral and "declined to file any charge against W."
Nevertheless, the complaint says, a parent — who served as assistant principal at a different Sumner County school, but who had two kids in W.S.' class — "pursued actions of vengeance" against the boy and his parents, "including personally prosecuting a juvenile delinquency petition for more than seven months."
The complaint names both the Sumner County Board of Education and that parent as defendants.
"[The defendant], with his actual and apparent authority as an assistant principal, claimed that … if the juvenile charges were upheld, he could have W. removed from school — his goal," the complaint says. "Representing himself, and with no district attorney, he demanded the case move forward to include W. being put through a forensic evaluation for capacity."
The other parent allegedly forced the family to return to juvenile court at least three more times over the next several months, demanding that he be allowed to question the forensic examiner and present his own evidence.
In the end, the other parent's efforts failed, the complaint says, and the petition was dismissed in April 2026.
The parents say that they tried to warn the school district what would happen.
"The failure to provide the requested behavioral supports was a substantial factor in the behavioral crisis that followed," the complaint says. "The crisis was the precise kind of event the parents had warned would occur without support."
The school district and the other parent are both to blame, the parents say.
"The District knew or should have known that [the defendant] was invoking his school position in connection with the petition, with [the defendant] claiming by virtue of his position that he was an authority on IEPs, discipline, and consequences," the complaint says. In addition, their son has "suffered stigma, anxiety, and emotional injury," while the parents had to incur the cost of hiring lawyers to defend against the other parent's extended pursuit of criminal charges, the complaint says.
In the end, the support was provided and the boy made "adequate educational progress and was promoted to first grade," the complaint says.
"The family appreciates the hard and necessary work of special education teachers and aides who make inclusion possible," attorney Justin Gilbert told Law&Crime in an email. "Obviously, angry school district employees filing criminal charges against a five year old with autism with developmental delays is unhelpful on many levels."
The family is suing in federal court alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, as well as federal and state claims of malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress and abuse of process. The parents are seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
The Sumner County Schools did not immediately reply to Law&Crime's request for comment.
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