The lawyer for the mother of the 14-year-old St. Joseph Convent Kingstown (SJCK) student at the heart of the on-going legal battle says the atmosphere at the school has been poisoned against the fourth-former.
Students at the private Catholic school exchanged their books for placards and took to the schoolyard on Monday to protest the presence of the teenager at the institution.
Justice Gertel Thom ruled in court on Monday that the student must leave the school until the outcome of a lawsuit set to be heard on Nov. 15.
Her ruling overturned a temporary injunction granted by Justice Frederick Bruce-Lyle on Sept. 20 and upheld by Justice Wesley James on Friday, that the student remains at the school while the lawsuit is pending.
“I think the real problem here is that the school administrators have so poisoned the atmosphere at the St. Joseph’s Convent Kingstown against this young child,” Thomas told I-Witness News on Monday.
“And more importantly, it is not just the child, but the mother; because, for them, how dare this mother stand up for her child, because what they (the school) have relished and lived on over all those years, a child transgresses and the parent comes to the school and insults and brutalises the child,” he further said.
The student was reportedly expelled from SJCK in July, four months after she is said to have written in a workbook a rude comment about a female teacher.
“The mother did not condone what the child did but the mother was pointing to a particular set of facts that may have helped in explaining what the child did,” Thomas told I-Witness News.
“The administrators did not want to hear that and so they made a push to give this woman a bad rep. She is a very dignified woman. She is not an ideologue, she is not an unreasonable woman but she probably did what will redound to the benefit of so many children in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, because I do believe that from here on in, teacher-student, parent-school administrative relationship will not be the same again.
“I think that the administrator in the school must be on their P’s and their Q’s about how they document information about students. I think children are going to understand that ‘Look, this could be very difficult for us and we will have to act in a particular way’ and parents would become empowered to know that once children are dealt with in an unsatisfactory way that they have recourse to the court,” Thomas said.
In my opinion the parents and the lawyer have ruined the life of this child by making the matter public. The girls life is now in the public domain which means she will be identified for ever.
I also believe the lawyer should be reprimanded by the court for making this matter public, its a disgrace.
Perhaps even the girl should seek compensation from the lawyer.
Mr Thomas is right about his comments on the change in parent-teacher-school relations. This parent-child and him have made it worse for others. Children need to be trained properly and that is the responsibility of the parent(s), so her mother is as much to blame. Old people say “if you see mother dog run a road, expect puppy dog too”.
Sad. What does the teacher who was involved in this has to say. We are hearing all these things about the girl, but where is the other party in this whole thing. This thing has turned into a one sided joke and it looks like it’s now state sponsored and condoned bullying.
Poor kid. I hope her mom gets her out of SVG. As someone said before, she now has a scarlet letter on her forehead.
I hate the word “trained”. Kid’s aren’t monkeys or dogs to be trained.
i feel so sad for this child, this has truly been blown out of proportion, this child has been damaged for life and it only takes the power of GOD to bring her out and i hope she does. Is this what we are telling our kids when things don’t go your way protest, where has the love gone, where has the peace gone… where has ‘i forgive you’ gone. This is so sad for a school that say they stand on the principles of GOD, so sad.
Unlike the other secondary schools the St. Joseph’s Convent Kingstown has a very active student council for years now. They are the ones who organised the protest. It is amazing the student who was expelled by the school could not have been controlled by the teachers, principal and the school board…was physically hostile towards one teacher and verbally hostile towards another and the list goes on. This one child was beyond their reproach but all of a sudden these same teachers could have prevented this student organised protest. When a class of 35 girls get up and march out of your classroom I would like to see you stop them. It took all the teachers, the father and the nuns to eventually regain control of the school, then the school was held in a special session of prayer to calm their spirits. I want you to be in a situation in which you cant be yourself r be too relaxed because there is someone around you waiting to slap a law suit on you if you watch them too hard. The school yard is a private place. How is the mother of the chid allowed to go there to stake out the outside classroom and [pssibly] intimidate the staff and students. It is okay for her to go there to scare everyone but it is not okay for the frightened chickens to run around the yard. puhleeze!
The LAW is an ASS, and this one has two holes ‘ O ‘ O !