NY dad of boy with autism sues school district for privacy breach

A Long Island teacher revealed a teen’s autism diagnosis in an online article in which she used his full name and made “disparaging and condescending remarks,” according to a lawsuit.

Jennifer Ingold’s piece, “Sealing Civic Readiness in Our Middle Schools” was published May 18, 2022, on the education news site MiddleWeb.com and included “stigmatizing” information about the nature of the boy’s disabilities, including his “extreme shyness” and “lack of confidence,” the child’s dad, Thomas Stringer, said in the Brooklyn Federal Court filing.

Shortly after the article was published, the National Council for Social Studies shared it as the headlining story in its popular newsletter, “SmartBrief.”

MiddleWeb and Ingold also both posted the story on Twitter, circulating it “to tens of thousands of people” without consent from the teen or his family.

“In fact, they never knew the article would mention their son at all,” the family alleged in court papers.

Stringer is seeking $1 million in damages from Ingold and the Bay Shore Union Free School District.

Stringer claims Ingold’s confidentiality breach resulted in “psychological, emotional, and financial injury” to his family, resulting in medical expenses “to treat the injuries and the cost of efforts to assist in the removal of the information from the public domain,” the complaint states.

Ingold, a social studies teacher, is also an author, public speaker, and leading education blogger, with her work featured in major education-centered publications like Social Education, Middle-Level Learning, AMLE Magazine and MiddleWeb.com, court docs show.

“Our clients have had their trust and educational privacy violated by a teacher and the Bay Shore School District for unjustifiable reasons,” Derek Sells, the Stringer family’s attorney, told The Post.

The teacher did not respond to requests for comment.

The district said it did not comment on pending litigation.