School District U46 will pay $1.5 million to a South Elgin boy severely beaten by a fellow student at Kenyon Woods Middle School in 2017, a lawsuit settlement agreement obtained by The Courier-News says.
A lump sum payment is to be made to Henry Sembdner and his family, but is not an admission of guilt by the school district, the settlement said. Both sides are prohibited from discussing the deal, which was approved by the U46 School Board on Oct. 21 and finalized by Kane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Clancy Boles.
The document was acquired by the newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Henry Sembdner was a 12-year-old seventh-grader in 2017 when a fellow student slammed him to the ground and beat him into unconsciousness after Sembdner bumped into him, police said. His injuries required him to be placed into a medically induced coma and he required a month of treatment before he could return to school, officials said.
The attacker, who was 14 and in eighth-grade at the time, pleaded guilty in juvenile court to aggravated battery and was sentenced to 12 months of probation, 100 hours of community service, random drug testing and counseling for anger management and other issues.
The Sembdner lawsuit charged the South Elgin school and U46 mishandled the situation by waiting nearly 45 minutes to call 911 and failing to protect students from the boy, who reportedly had a “significant and lengthy history” of problems at the school, including prior violent attacks against other students that resulted in physical injuries, the suit said.