Lawsuit Dismissed Over Disabled Student's Death

A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit filed by a family whose disabled daughter died after she stopped breathing on a school bus driving her to Sessums Elementary.

The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. ruled that the family did not prove discrimination.

Dennis and Lisa Herrera filed a lawsuit against the Hillsborough County School District, after .

The 7-year-old suffered from a neuromuscular disorder, and the parents claimed that school workers did not position her wheelchair correctly and lacked proper training.

The staff did not dial 911 when they noticed the child was not breathing. The bus driver told a supervisor, and a school aide phone Isabella's mother, who called 911.

But U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. has dismissed the suit.

Moody has ruled that the parents did not prove the district discriminated against them and their daughter. The family has 20 days to amend the lawsuit. Moody ruled in part that the family failed to show a pattern of discrimination by the school district.

The district has faced other faced other recent problems with proper supervision of disabled students:

• On Oct. 22, 2012, 11-year-old unnoticed and drowned in a pond behind the campus.
• In September 2012, bus driver Stephanie Wilkerson kicked an eight-year-old autistic girl from Tampa down the steps of a school bus after the child shoved her. The girl broke her ankle in the fall. Wilkerson was fired from her job in January and faces an aggravated abuse charge. Her actions were caught on a surveillance video and widely publicized.