A civil lawsuit alleges that in 2018, a Seattle Public Schools math teacher punched a student in the face twice. The student, now 21, is seeking relief.

SEATTLE — A civil trial beginning next week will examine whether Seattle Public Schools failed to protect students from a teacher with a documented history of alleged aggressive behavior, culminating in a 2018 assault on 13-year-old student.

Zakaria Sheikhibrahim, now 21, is suing the district after his math teacher punched him twice in the face during class at Meany Middle School on January 11, 2018. The lawsuit states the district had been warned about the teacher’s dangerous behavior for nearly a decade before the attack.

“Seattle Public Schools made conscious decisions to keep this man employed,” said Lara Hruska, one of Sheikhibrahim’s attorneys. “They made purposeful cost-benefit decisions to protect an adult instead of protecting children.”

The case centers on a troubling question: How did a teacher with an extensive record of complaints against him remain in Seattle Public School classrooms for over a decade?

In June 2011, seven years before the teacher allegedly assaulted Sheikhibrahim, Principal Mark Perry sent an urgent email to the district’s human resources and legal departments warning that “[the teacher] is unfit to be a teacher and it is only a matter of time, I believe, before something serious happens involving a student and/or possibly a parent. He is a predator and has serious anger management issues.”

Perry added: “I believe [the teacher] is a danger to our students. I don’t want to be the one later who is asked after a student or students come forward or a parent comes forward, a student is seriously damaged, and/or a lawsuit is filed and someone asks why we didn’t know and/or why we didn’t do anything.”

Despite this warning, the district transferred the teacher between schools multiple times but never removed him from the classroom.

According to the lawsuit, students reported the teacher for displaying a pillow at the front of his classroom reading “I have issues” and would point to it while threatening them. Witness statements describe him telling students he would “kill them,” that he kept a “blowtorch under his desk,” and told stories about lighting animals and homeless people on fire.

The January 2018 incident began over a backpack policy violation. According to court documents and witness statements, the teacher confronted Sheikhibrahim, put his forehead against the student’s forehead, and used racial slurs. When the 13-year-old pushed him away, the teacher punched him twice, slammed his head on a table, dragged him across it, and forced him into the hallway.

An audio recording submitted as evidence seems to capture the teacher explaining to his next class what happened: “I had a rough morning. I had to punch a student in the face. Well, if you put your hands on me, I’m going to kill you.”

“As a lawyer, it’s very helpful to have a recording like that,” Hruska said. “As a mother, it’s horrifying.”

The district’s own investigation found the teacher story was “not credible” and “was not consistent with over 30 student witnesses.” Yet Sheikhibrahim was suspended for 15 days while the teacher received only five days.

“One of our witnesses at the trial is the little girl who recorded [the audio]. She was 12, and she recorded it because she said she was afraid to be in [the teacher’s] class, and she was collecting evidence for when something bad happened,” Hruska said.

Attorney Greg McBroom, also representing Sheikhibrahim, said the district’s approach was systematic. “It’s cheaper for them to take a problematic teacher and move them to a different school than it is to actually fight them and the union and to do the right thing and to get that teacher terminated,” he said.

Court documents reveal the teacher was transferred to another school after brief administrative leave and continued teaching until 2021, when he finally resigned as part of a settlement that cleared his personnel file.

Sheikhibrahim’s attorneys say he remains traumatized.

McBroom described the ongoing effects: “He has traumatic brain injury. He’s got PTSD. He has severe depression. He withdraws from society. He has difficulty finding jobs, difficulty interacting with people.”

The case also alleges discrimination. It states the teacher specifically targeted Black male students of African immigrant descent, calling Somali students “travel ban” and “peanut head,” and using the N-word in class.

Hruska, who has a daughter in Seattle Public Schools, said the case represents broader systemic failure. “I am vigilant because I know about the dysfunction in the district,” she said. “I know that there’s an extra layer of care that I need to take because Seattle Public Schools is a broken, broken school district. Our firm does 100% school law. That’s what our firm does for the last decade. And this is the most egregious case I’ve ever seen of school district negligence.”

The trial begins Oct. 6 in King County Superior Court. Seattle Public Schools did not respond to requests for comment. The teacher could not be reached.