The family of a 19-year-long-established pupil with autism will receive a $2 million settlement from a Florida school district a year and a half after he choked on a rooster nugget and died
March 25, 2021, 12: 58 PM
3 min learn
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The family of a 19-year-long-established pupil with autism will receive a $2 million settlement from a Florida school district a year and a half after he choked on a rooster nugget and died.
The settlement current by the Palm Beach County College Board on Wednesday, also objects up a crucial coaching program — named in honor of Kedar Williams — for principals, lecturers and varied workers who work with particular wants college students, the South Florida SunSentinel reported.
“His fogeys are happy now now not handiest with the settlement, however they’re most joyful with the truth they fought for his or her son and fought for a coaching program designed to handle the deficiencies that ended in Kedar’s demise,” said Sia Baker-Barnes, a legal official who represents his mother, Megan Williams, and property.
Kedar Williams used to be rushed to a neatly being heart Aug. 13, 2019, after choking on the rooster nugget at William T. Dwyer Excessive in Palm Beach Gardens.
Williams had a originate of autism that made him mainly non-verbal, and he also had a condition that made him at threat of aspiration, or choking, the family said.
An aide used to be presupposed to be assigned handiest to Williams, Baker-Barnes said. But video showed the aide used to be attending to at least one other pupil when Williams choked.
“Having your son wave goodbye to you in the morning, sooner than school, after which below no circumstances seeing him alive again is a mother’s worst nightmare. Our family has a gaping hole without Kedar in our lives,” his mother, Megan Williams, said in a assertion.
The boy’s father, Jeffrey Williams, will share in the settlement. He is a trainer in Polk County.
“He’s round young of us daily, so right here’s a reminder of the loss he feels,” Salesia Smith-Gorden, a legal official Jeffrey Williams, told the newspaper.
Most frequently, there’s a cap of $300,000 for negligence or legal responsibility instances, except a claims invoice is filed in the Legislature, permitting an even bigger payout. However the family filed a lawsuit in federal courtroom, apart from to notify courtroom, citing a violation of federal protections for faculty students with disabilities. That enabled them to amass an even bigger settlement without the Legislature.
“While no quantity of cash will ever eradicate away the probability prompted by this tragedy, the College District of Palm Beach County hopes that the settlement reached with the Williams family will serve to ease the burden of this enormous loss,” district spokeswoman Claudia Shea said in a assertion.
