N.J. School District Pays $4.2M to Student Paralyzed by Bully Attack

A New Jersey board of education says it wasn’t its decision to enter a $4.2 million legal settlement with a former student who said he wasn’t adequately protected from a bully.

The Ramsey Board of Education released a statement Wednesday saying that the settlement was the decision of its insurance companies — and that the school district did nothing wrong.

The settlement is to be paid by the insurers.

Sawyer Rosenstein was 12 in 2006 when he was paralyzed after being punched in the abdomen by a student whose bullying he had previously complained about.

Rosenstein is now a first-year student at Syracuse University and says he decided to speak publicly about the case to show that students can recover from being bullied — and to try to make would-be bullies think twice before they get violent.