ALPENA — A jury could by early 2025 consider the lawsuit against Alpena Public Schools and several members of its staff filed by a former student who said APS failed to protected the student from allegedly being groomed and raped by former APS special education teacher Heather Winfield.

A Dec. 1 scheduling order outlines the entire schedule of the case.

According to the order, the case officially started on Jan. 14, when both parties began initial disclosure. The discovery process, in which the two sides collect evidence, is set to conclude Aug. 6. A settlement conference is scheduled for Aug. 14, likely the last opportunity for the parties to agree to an end to the lawsuit before heading into trial.

A jury trial will be held on Feb. 4 if the two sides can’t agree to a settlement, according to the order.

APS doesn’t comment on active legal cases. According to one of the student’s attorney, Zach Runyan, of the St. Clair Shores-based Runyan Law Group, the case is still in its early discovery stages.

“We are starting to take depositions next month,” Runyan said in an email to The News.

The News does not name survivors of alleged sexual abuse without their permission.

The student first filed the suit on Sept. 1 against APS, Steven Genschaw, who at all times relevant to the suit was principal at Thunder Bay Junior High School, Justin Gluesing, who was the human resources director at APS at the relevant time, Jean Kowalski, who was an assistant principal at Thunder Bay Junior High School, and Julie Kieliszewski, who was a teacher at Thunder Bay Junior High School.

In the lawsuit, the student alleges Winfield had been allegedly grooming him since October 2015, when he first entered her special education class. The suit also alleges that, by the time of Winfield’s October 2016 resignation from the school district over the relationship, she had raped the plaintiff more than 100 times.

The lawsuit argues that all the defendants failed to take any meaningful actions to protect the student from the alleged abuse, despite having available evidence and internal concerns that the relationship was inappropriate. Additionally, the suit accuses APS of not protecting the student from bullying that he received from students about the alleged abuse after Winfield’s resignation.

The suit specifically accuses the defendants of eight violations of the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and several other statutes, including creating or failing to prevent a sexually hostile educational environment, retaliation, and discrimination on the basis of sex.

Other alleged violations include a violation of Title IX, the federal law that outlines how schools should handle sexual abuse allegations, a violation of the right to equal protection, a violation of the 14th Amendment, and a failure to report, in violation of Michigan child protection laws.

Winfield was tried in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court for her relationship with the student in 2021, where she faced seven different charges. Ultimately, after a three-week trial, Winfield was found guilty of only one charge of accosting a child for immoral purposes, which resulted in Winfield receiving five years probation, nine months in the county jail, and being put on the sex offender registry for 25 years.