A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Lake Region School District over the death of a student during a senior hiking trip.

The case, brought last year by two parents whose son died during the trip in 2021, alleged the school was at fault because officials knew it was a dangerous hike, but failed to properly train staff chaperones. That showed a “deliberate indifference” to their son’s rights, his parents said, and also put him in danger.

U.S. District Judge Lance Walker sided with the northwest Cumberland County school district, which had argued the lawsuit failed to show anything illegal had occurred. Students weren’t required to complete the hike, Walker said, and neither the school district nor its staff placed the student in danger.

Walker said the complaint was missing any facts that showed the school district ignored a “persistent and widespread” problem. The parents argued that the school had for years been organizing this challenging hike that came with a “foreseeable risk that someone might experience serious harm.” But the school district’s “willingness to face that risk” and take students hiking is not illegal, Walker found.

An attorney for the school and its superintendent, who was also named in the suit, did not respond to a request to discuss Walker’s decision.

The parents – Amy Tait and Christopher Strecker – were disappointed, their lawyer Michael Bigos wrote in an email, “and are currently considering next steps, including appealing the Court’s Order.”

Michael Strecker was 17, going into his senior year, when he died at the end of a day-long hike on Sept. 12, 2021. He was one of about 40 students who took the yearly “Senior Awareness” trip to the White Mountain National Forest, where they were scheduled to hike South Baldface Mountain and camp overnight.

His parents described the hike as “strenuous” – 10.7 miles long with a 3,600-foot elevation change – and they estimate that even experienced hikers need seven hours to complete the trail.

Strecker was not an average hiker, and within 15 minutes he was already asking his group’s chaperone, teacher Jessica Daggett, if he could go back. According to the lawsuit, Michael’s face was pale and his lips were blue.

Daggett, however, continued to “verbally push” for Strecker to continue, the complaint stated, even as Michael continued to complain. He later threw up, and another hiker passing his crew said Strecker appeared “visibly out of it.”

It wasn’t until the teen collapsed around 4:30 p.m. that day that Daggett called for help. Another group of students had to bring water because his group had run out. There was no cell service, so another teacher had to drive away from the trail to call for help, according to the complaint.

Emergency responders arrived at 7 p.m. and Strecker was pronounced dead at 9 p.m.

Walker said the circumstances were dreadful and acknowledged the several shortcomings leveled at the school – staff weren’t carrying automated external defibrillator devices and they didn’t have enough water, parents weren’t informed of all of the risks, and the hike took them far from cell service.

Yet, Tait and Strecker had to prove more than those shortcomings to successfully sue the school because of laws that protect municipal entities and their employees. They had to prove that the school staff’s conduct clearly violated Strecker’s constitutional rights in a way that was “so extreme and egregious as to shock the contemporary conscience.”

Walker said they needed to show how the school’s policies and training, or lack thereof, directly caused Strecker’s death or placed him in danger.

Strecker’s parents also sued Daggett, arguing she was liable in both her professional and personal capacity. But Walker said he believed Daggett didn’t recognize the teen’s heat stroke symptoms, so she couldn’t be responsible for his death, and that she was protected under qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects state employees from lawsuits regarding their work.

“If Daggett did not recognize the signs and symptoms of heatstroke, she could not have anticipated that the failure to honor Michael’s request to turn back constituted deliberate indifference to a known, substantial risk of serious harm,” said Walker.

She is still a humanities teacher with the district, according to the school’s website. She did not respond to an email from a reporter Thursday afternoon asking about the dismissal.