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The Montgomery County Board of Education last month moved to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the mother of a Northwest High School student who was found dead two miles from the Germantown school in January 2022.

County lawyers argued that the death of Jailyn Jones was not the school system’s fault, because he was not at school — he was suspended at the time — and school officials could not have predicted his assault and death.

“Plaintiffs fail to include any facts to plausibly indicate that the (Board of Education) knew or should have foreseen the January 21 assault and murder that occurred during Jailyn’s suspension, while off school grounds, by others,” states the motion to dismiss, prepared by Montgomery County Attorney John Markovs and three others.

“In short, the Complaint is completely devoid of any facts to support that the particular alleged harms at issue were foreseeable to the BOE or its unnamed employees.”

Jones had physical and emotional disabilities, PTSD, ADHD and severe anxiety, causing him to be placed on behavioral improvement plans and individualized education programs. His mother, Alexis Jones-McDaniel, who sued in October, says he was bullied at Clarksburg High School, and was beaten and robbed by classmates; on one occasion, her complaint states, he suffered a torn retina.

Jones’s behavioral improvement plan at Clarksburg High School “recognized that Jailyn instigated gossip and then negatively reacted when he was called names in return,” the county’s motion states. “Jailyn was also physically aggressive and was targeting other students.”

It says he was suspended twice from Clarksburg High School “for fighting and engaging in peer conflicts in the hallways,” then expelled after he brought a gun and loaded magazine to school. He was later reassigned to Northwest High School, where the county says he was “given a fresh start.”

At Northwest, he was suspended in December 2021 “for using threatening, offensive, abusive, and disrespectful language towards staff members,” and in January 2022 after a conflict with another student.

Jones-McDaniel said her son should have been allowed to attend a virtual school because it would have allowed him to improve his behavioral issues and perform better academically, but an MCPS official allegedly threatened truancy charges if he did not attend Northwest High School in person, the complaint says.

She argues school officials violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in suspending him, “failed to protect him despite the actual notice of the dangers of bullying and harassment based on his disability, and created a danger to him that was the proximate cause of his death.”

“Jailyn was treated like an aggressor instead of being treated like a victim,” Tonya Sweat, Jones-McDaniel’s lawyer, said in an October interview.

The complaint also names unspecified “Jane/John Does” as defendants. Sweat said that was included so that she could bring claims against Jones’s bullies or school personnel if they collect evidence in the discovery process that indicates liability.

One of Jones’s classmates was charged with murdering him, but a jury found him not guilty in 2023. The records of the trial are sealed because the defendant was a minor, even though he was tried as an adult.