The Poudre School District in Fort Collins will pay a $16.2 million settlement to the families of 10 children who accused a former employee of abuse.
The payment, announced Wednesday, comes a year after Tyler Zanella, a former paraprofessional for the district, was sentenced to more than 12 years for assaulting disabled students on school buses.
“It is utterly incomprehensible how a school district could allow a convicted child abuser to have access to utterly helpless children in this situation,” said David Lane, an attorney representing the families, in a statement. “Ultimately, this governmental failure will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and these innocent children have been severely damaged.”
A spokesman for the Poudre School District could not immediately be reached for comment.
Zanella was arrested in May 2023 after surveillance footage showed the paraprofessional hitting a disabled student on a school bus. He initially faced more than 160 charges of child abuse, harassment and assault, but pleaded guilty to assault on an at-risk person, harassment and child abuse.
Zanella was hired in 2022 as a bus attendant to help with autistic elementary-aged children. The district knew Zanella pleaded guilty to child abuse in 2012, according to the families’ lawsuit, which was filed in 2023.
The lawsuit alleged videos showed Zanella ramming a child’s head into a school bus window and mocking the student. Footage also showed Zanella hitting other children on the bus, according to the lawsuit.
The children were between the ages of 6 and 11 years old at the time of the abuse.
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