CCSD student, parents sue district over ‘pornographic’ assignment

The parents of a Las Vegas Academy of the Arts student are suing the Clark County School District over a classroom assignment and subsequent school board confrontation that was reposted by a right-wing viral social media account.

At a board meeting in May, Candra Evans testified before the district’s Board of Trustees about an assignment that she said was given to her daughter at LVA.

The assignment, outlined in Evans’ lawsuit against the district, required that students in Kelly Hawes’ theater class write drafts of a monologue that would then be randomly assigned to, memorized and performed by another student.

Evans read a part of the monologue her daughter performed to members of the school board in May. The full monologue, outlined in the lawsuit, describes a woman coming out as a lesbian to her ex-boyfriend, and contains lines such as, “I don’t like your d—- or any d—- in that case.”

Evans’ comment to the board went viral earlier this year after a shortened version of the clip was reposted by a conservative Twitter account that criticized the board for interrupting Evans’ comment and asking her to refrain from using profanity.

“If you don’t want me to read it to you, what was it like for my 15-year-old daughter to memorize pornographic material…?” Evans asked at the time.

Sbe said at the time that it was “horrifying” for her to read the monologue to the board, but wanted to give board trustees perspective on how it felt for her daughter to memorize and act out the assignment in class, calling it pornographic material.

The district said in a statement at the time that it was investigating the situation and that the assignment was a student-generated writing exercise that “produced content not conducive to student instruction.”

In the lawsuit filed Friday, Evans described Hawes’ assignment as unlawful, inappropriate and constituted “sexual grooming” and sexual indoctrination of her students.

Evans also alleged that a district police officer falsified a report she made about the incident and “conspired with others” to prevent the report from being filed accurately.

“At any point, Hawes could have prevented this pornographic material from getting into the hands of children, but she refused,” the lawsuit reads. “When confronted about this, (LVA Principal Scott Walker) and CCSD did nothing.”

The lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $50,000, as well as a gag order and a restraining order against Hawes and other district administrators so that they cannot “further harm” Evans’ daughter or comment publicly on the case, “as was done the last time Candra Evans went to the school board.”

The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Hawes could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Contact Lorraine Longhi at 702-387-5298 or llonghi@reviewjournal.com. Follow her at @lolonghi on Twitter.