Teacher Sued for Drawing a Reminder on Boy’s Eyelids

A teacher who drew on an 11-year-old boy’s eyelids as a reminder to dot his I’s and cross his Ts has been named in a civil rights lawsuit.

“What could she have been thinking?” asked Taylor Culver, the attorney who filed the suit Thursday seeking $1 million in Alameda County Superior Court. “It would never have happened if the kid were not black.”

The boy’s parents allege that Marylin Fong humiliated the boy in front of his fifth-grade classmates at James Monroe Elementary School in nearby San Leandro.

The suit says Fong had reprimanded the boy for failing to “dot his I’s and cross his Ts” on several occasions.

But on Oct. 5, according to the suit, Fong decided to “make certain” the boy would never forget again. She told the boy to close his eyes, then used a marker and drew dots and circles on his eyelids.

When the boy blinked, the drawing made it look like he had a second set of eyes. Fong then threatened that if he forgot again, she would draw Ts on his eyelids.

The parents at first demanded that the school take action against Fong.

In late November, the school said it would deal with the situation by putting a letter of reprimand in the teacher’s personnel file.

The family, which was not named to protect the boy’s identity, filed a $1-million claim against the district. The claim was rejected.

The parents had already taken their son out of the school because, the lawsuit says, other students were “taunting and ridiculing him relentlessly.”

Officials for the school district, also named in the suit, declined to comment, saying they had not seen it.