While calling the 2017 suicide death of 12-year-old Wyatt Lansberry “tragic,” Altoona Area School District leaders still do not think a federal lawsuit brought by the student’s family contains enough facts to allow the case to move forward.

The Pittsburgh attorney representing AASD, Maureen K. Barber, has asked U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson to dismiss the lawsuit that was filed in January and was amended in May.

The amended complaint, just two weeks ago, stated that the seventh grader was subjected to “intense, persistent, and malicious bullying activities” by other Altoona Area Junior High School students, including many members of the football team.

It also mentions a time when the youngster was harassed during one of his classes to the point that he asked to leave the classroom, and the teacher told him “he needed to stop being a baby.”

Wyatt took his life on May 18, 2017, after arriving home from school.

The lawsuit filed by Altoona attorneys Steven P. Passarello and Daniel Kiss on behalf of Wyatt’s father, Marc Lansberry, said the youngster left a note reporting the bullying he experienced and hoped his death would bring about changes in the school.

The district’s answer filed last Friday in the federal court in Johnstown contended that the lawsuit still lacks specifics to sue under Title IX of the federal Education Act, federal civil rights acts, or under the Pennsylvania’s Wrongful Death Act.

It contends that school officials are protected by immunity and says that civil rights charges against AASD Superintendent Charles Prijatelj and School Board President Don “Dutch” Brennan should be dismissed because they are not supported by acts that they did, or did not do, to violate Wyatt’s rights.

Prijatelj and Brennan were named in the lawsuit only because of the offices they hold, the district claims.

If the judge permits the lawsuit to move forward, the district is asking the court to remove several paragraphs from the lawsuit that it considers “inflammatory.”

For instance, the lawsuit stated after Wyatt’s death that certain items, such as the youngster’s pass book, were not turned over to investigators from the Altoona Police Department, and the investigation is still ongoing.

The lawsuit contended that a review of school district policies following Wyatt’s death has been sitting on a shelf in the board room “collecting dust and had not ever been reviewed by the board of directors.”

This allegation, among others, should also be removed, district officials said.

Title IX is the federal act that prohibits sexual harassment in a school setting. The lawsuit contended Wyatt was harassed because, to some of his classmates, he wasn’t “perceived to be masculine enough relative to his peers and not having the ideal appearance of a male in his age group.”

The new complaint filed in May contains no “specific instances or examples of alleged sexual harassment …” the district answered.

It then pointed out if there was harassment, it had to go beyond “name-calling and teasing” and had to be “so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it deprived the victim of access to educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.”

Under the civil rights laws, the district argues, the “state” — in this case the school — “has no affirmative obligation to protect its citizens from the violent acts of private individuals.”

One exception to that rule occurs if there was a “state-created danger” in which authorities took actions that subjected a person to harm — such as being “deliberately indifferent” to the harassment that the seventh-grader was being subjected.

The AASD answer cited multiple cases in which students were victims of violence and harassment, but neither the schools nor the officials were held liable.

One case involved the Wayne School District, which prepared an education plan for a student suffering from depression and anxiety. The student at the end of the school year committed suicide after receiving poor grades and after going through therapy.

The lawsuit against the school district failed even though the district did not tell the student’s parents about his problems.

The AASD answer also concluded that there are no facts in the present lawsuit that suggest the district or its employees acted with “deliberate indifference” to Wyatt’s safety.

The incident cited in which the teacher told the youngster to “stop being a baby” did not rise to the level of a civil rights violation, it states.

The allegations against an unnamed and unidentified teacher “did not violate (Wyatt’s) constitutional rights under the circumstances,” the district contends.

Gibson must now decide if the lawsuit will move forward. He has also scheduled a case management conference for June 19.