A pregnant special-education teacher in New York City says she was kicked in the stomach by a student, then later dismissed after school officials blamed her for the incident, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Lauren Vitale, 31, was working as a kindergarten teacher and was six months pregnant at the time of the January incident, the court papers state. The student involved had a documented history of violent behavior, according to the suit.
The lawsuit claims the special-needs kindergartner was placed in Vitale’s classroom at Staten Island’s PS 84 without advance warning about the child’s past behavior. Vitale alleges that the move was part of a broader pattern by school administrators of unfairly targeting her.
During the confrontation, the child allegedly spit in Vitale’s face and kicked her in her pregnant abdomen. Court documents say the episode left the expectant mother suffering bleeding, reduced fetal movement and high blood pressure.
Rather than backing her after the alleged assault, Vitale says the school’s principal quickly faulted her for what happened, according to the lawsuit.
Vitale was ultimately fired after she objected to the school’s handling of the incident, the court filing claims.
“They said that I could have avoided the kick to my stomach. I’m not Keanu Reeves — I can’t dodge a bullet,” Vitale told The Post.
“It’s been one of the hardest experiences of my life,” she said. “I was in fear that I was going to lose my baby.”
Vitale, whose daughter is now 2 months old, said the alleged horrific experience was the climax of a years-long pattern of discrimination, hostile work environment and retaliation by education bosses against her.
City officials declined to comment.
Vitale claims in ther suit that her trouble began as far back as her 2023 hiring process, when the principal asked if she planned on getting pregnant “anytime soon” and laughed.
“I was uncomfortable, but I needed a job,” Vitale told The Post of the encounter.
She said in her suit that she then felt especially targeted in early 2024 after she filed a union complaint over the placement of a different dangerous student in her classroom.
The child bit her and struck her with a curtain rod, Vitale’s lawsuit says.
In response to Vitale’s complaint, the principal called her to his office, labeled her a “whistleblower” and warned that she had “opened Pandora’s box,” court documents allege.
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Then this past September, when Vitale was eight weeks pregnant, she privately shared her good news about the baby with the school’s guidance counselor — also a union rep — who she considered a friend, her suit says..
But the news was immediately leaked to the principal, who cornered her in her classroom and “badgered” her into confirming it minutes later, Vitale says in her suit.
She was immediately slapped with a punitive Teacher Improvement Plan, the lawsuit claims.
“Once I was pregnant, I was scrutinized more, [the principal] would come and observe more, and I just felt there was a change,” Vitale told The Post.
Then came the student who kicked her in the stomach in January, the teacher said.
“Everything seemed perfectly fine until she then spit in my face,” Vitale recalled.
Later in the day, the student then kicked the pregnant teacher in the stomach, the suit says.
Vitale took herself to a labor-and-delivery unit, where she “experienced bleeding, cramping, decreased fetal movement, and high blood pressure,” according to the filing.
She later learned that the student had violently assaulted teachers at her other school, her suit says.
“I felt like I was being set up,” Vitale said.
When she returned to work a few days later, the principal “flipped the script,” she said.
He criticized her injury report, falsely accused her of corporal punishment, docked her pay and denied her work injury claim, the suit says.
A week after filing a grievance with her union in April, she was allegedly fired — just before she would have become tenure eligible.
Now, unemployed and with a newborn at home, Vitale says she “wants her job back.”
“I want to work with children, I want to be a teacher. I just want to be back where I belong,” she said.
“I’m heartbroken by everything that’s happened.”
