Parents of drowned Harlem student to sue NYC

The parents of the Harlem sixth-grader who drowned during a June field trip in Long Beach plan to sue New York City for $20 million.

The planned civil suit against New York City will rely heavily on a city school investigator's report, which found the field trip to a beach without lifeguards had too little supervision and involved improper permission slips, among other problems, said the attorney for the family of Nicole Suriel.

The 12-year-old sixth-grade student at Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science & Engineering was among two dozen kids on an end-of-year beach trip when she drowned off Long Beach on June 22.

"She had a promising future, and this shouldn't have happened," said Manhattan attorney Oliver Storch, who filed a notice of claim on behalf of Nicole's mother and father, Juan and Marisol.

Storch said the report "placed responsibility squarely where it belongs."

New York City's Law Department on Friday acknowledged its receipt Thursday of the notice of claim. "This is a very tragic case," said department spokeswoman Kate Ahlers.

The same day a school system investigator's report on the drowning was released, the teacher who led the trip, Erin Bailey, was fired.

The report issued by the school system's special investigation commissioner, Richard Condon, blamed Bailey for letting students go into the ocean off Long Beach where no lifeguards were on duty. It concluded that during the June 22 trip, two dozen Columbia Secondary students had too little adult supervision and inadequate permission slips.

In addition to Suriel, four students were pulled from the water in distress. The report cited poor planning by school leadership and poor judgment by Bailey in failing to realize that no lifeguards were on duty, or to recognize the danger of their absence.

An assistant principal was demoted and Principal Jose Maldonado-Rivera was placed on probation after the drowning.