“Thornton Creek has this reputation as being this kind of hippie school, where kids are free to be who they are, and this welcoming environment where everyone is accepted where they're at,” she said.

The school, located in northeast Seattle, touts an exploratory, adventure-based learning model known as expeditionary learning. Thornton Creek serves about 545 students and operates on a $5.5 million annual budget, with approximately $300,000 raised by families and staff.

Through the district’s school choice lottery system , Ellis won placements for both Kienan and her then kindergarten-aged daughter, Talia, at Thornton Creek for the 2017-18 school year.

Upon enrolling, Kienan received an individualized education plan, or IEP, that outlined his needs and how to modify school instruction to meet them. Ellis, a stay-at-home mom, got involved in her children’s new school, volunteering to be vice chair of the Thornton Creek Site Council, a parent-led governing body. The prospect of establishing a community around the school was exciting to her.

But that excitement was short-lived.

An internal investigation by Seattle Public Schools found that Ellis was the target of a retaliatory bullying campaign led by Thornton Creek staff, precipitated by a failed effort by several members of the school community to get the assistant principal at the time appointed as principal.

However, Ellis and her legal counsel insist that the probe came up short for several reasons, including the district’s decision not to review Ellis’ complaint about the retaliation as a civil rights matter. That friction is at the center of a tort claim she filed against the district in April, seeking damages for the impact that the retaliation had on Kienan.

Ellis maintains that her family’s experiences are symptomatic of a larger problem with the SPS civil rights complaint process failing the very families it’s supposed to help. Her story is one of several recent instances in which parents have recounted dissatisfying results when dealing with the district’s Office of Student Civil Rights , which handles such cases.

The office “is charged with receiving, investigating and resolving student complaints of discrimination,” which includes treating a student differently and denying them access to services on the basis of their being part of a protected class, or failing to accommodate one’s disability. Those complaints may be received formally or informally, and in written or verbal form.

Ellis’ complaint was complex and unwieldy, she acknowledges. The nine-page grievance summarizes various issues apart from alleged racial discrimination and disability retaliation aimed at Kienan; it requires thoughtful legal consideration in its evaluation. But still, Ellis said, the district has an obligation to investigate complaints, no matter how tangled they may be.