Civil or Criminal, best option

Civil and criminal proceedings are independent of each other.  Whether or not the local prosecutor decides to bring criminal charges against the teacher makes no legal difference to whether or not you choose to sue the teacher or the school, although obviusly it would help your position if the prosecutor did bring criminal charges.  You may have a claim against the church for assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, contending that its employee was {arguably} acting within the scope of his employment when he struck the student, and the church is therefore liable for the teacher's actions.  You may also have a claim against the school for negligence, but I saw nothing in your email to indicate that the church was negligent.  Are you contending that there was something in the teacher's past history that should have tipped the church off and it was therefore negligent in hiring him?  Or in some way negligent for not having more security or supervisory personnel there to protect the students better? There is also a question of the amount of damages you can recover.  You haven't mentioned any monetary damages the child or his family suffered and, while you may not need any monetary damages to sustain the intentional tort claims, you probably (I say probably because Maryland law may be slightly different than where I practice) will need to show monetary damage to sustain a claim for negligence.