A Las Vegas family is taking a Spring Valley private school to court, claiming their 10-year-old son was relentlessly harassed on campus and physically attacked so severely that he lost a tooth and was later diagnosed with an adjustment disorder. The parents say they pulled him out of Las Vegas Day School in May and are asking a jury to award more than $30,000 in general and special damages.
What the complaint alleges
The lawsuit, filed by parents Noori On and Jimyoung Yu, names teacher Cheryl Collins, school official Tom Shininger and parent Tara Warnsdorfer as defendants. According to the complaint, the bullying began in January 2025, when classmates allegedly taunted the boy, calling him “dirty” and “stinky.”
The family says things escalated in February, when the child was allegedly pushed and kicked, an attack the complaint says cost him a tooth. The parents say they did not learn about the bullying until March 19, 2025, when they met with school staff about what had been happening.
The lawsuit states that on April 11 the boy received a behavior notice and a one-day detention tied to an incident that day. Less than a month later, on May 2, 2025, his parents withdrew him from Las Vegas Day School. As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the family later moved to Arizona and is seeking a jury trial and monetary damages.
School background
Las Vegas Day School is a private preschool-through-eighth-grade campus in Spring Valley. The school’s website lists K–5 tuition at $21,000 for the 2026–27 school year, and its admissions and financial pages promote small class sizes, guidance counseling and a wide range of extracurricular activities.
The complaint aims to hold the school, specific staff members and a fellow student’s parent responsible for what it describes as a sustained pattern of bullying and harm. Whether those claims hold up will be decided in court if the case moves forward.
Nevada law and what schools must do
Nevada law defines bullying in broad terms and requires schools and their governing bodies to adopt policies to report, investigate and respond to bullying and discrimination, including training for administrators and staff. The Nevada Revised Statutes spell out timelines for reporting and specific procedural duties for schools. The details are laid out in NRS chapter 388, which covers the state’s anti-bullying framework.
How this fits a wider pattern
Across the Las Vegas Valley, some families have increasingly turned to lawsuits when they say schools did not do enough to stop bullying or physical harm. Local reporting has documented thousands of bullying-related discipline entries in the 2024–25 school year, and advocates argue those numbers help explain why certain parents move from internal complaints to civil court when they feel school remedies fall short.
For more on recent trends and private-school cases, including how some campuses have responded with high-energy empathy assemblies, local reporting offers broader context.
Legal implications
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and a jury trial. If the case survives early procedural challenges, it will move into discovery, a phase that can include depositions and document production testing the parents’ claims about what school staff knew, when they knew it and how they responded.
Nevada’s anti-bullying statutes and school policy requirements are likely to be central to how judges and, if it gets that far, jurors evaluate whether Las Vegas Day School met its legal obligations.
Court records and future filings will show how the school and the named individuals respond to the allegations. The case also highlights larger questions that extend beyond one campus: how private schools document repeated student-on-student harm, how consistently they enforce their own policies and what recourse families have when they believe internal systems have failed.
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