Parent accuses N/A school of negligence

Apr 02, 2011 News

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…says head teacher banned her from school

A Grade Two student of the St Therese Primary School in New Amsterdam is nursing a three-inch cut on his forehead after another student punched him in his face then pushed him down on the concrete floor in the classroom shortly after 10:00 hrs on Thursday.
According to the boy’s mother, Eileen Lawrence, she is not satisfied with the manner in which the school administration, more particularly the head teacher, handled the entire matter.
She stated that she had to hear about the incident from the elder son, who also attends the school and who was given the school’s telephone by the school’s headmaster to speak to her.
The car turned up at her home with the boy and they left for the New Amsterdam Hospital. After quite a long wait for medical attention due to no doctors being present at the hospital, seven-year-old Raphael Mampowan received three stitches and a Tetanus injection.
The irate parent said that this is quite the norm at the school where several children are usually injured each week and have to receive medical attention.
“During the recess break, apparently the whole school was on the field; no law and order. And many other children getting this burst head. Big children pushing them down; the headmaster seems to not to care, nothing to do about it.
“I know it happened to my son. I see a lot of children encountering this same burst head coming out of school midday time. The big children pushing them down or some fight. The school has no law and order. It is getting worse. The teachers don’t keep an eye on the children,” the parent said.
The woman claimed that shortly after the incident, the boy went to the head teacher, dripping blood. He then sent him to look for his class teacher.
“When this thing happened, he was up and down with the blood dripping. He had to wipe his own cut,” she said.
The parent said that she was banned by the head teacher last October from ever entering the school premises again. She stated that she is facing this because she spoke out about the lax attitude of the school administration and because three children were sitting in a bench.
Lawrence claimed that every time she turns up at the school to check on her child, she is reprimanded by the guard and is stopped from entering the compound. The parent said that the head teacher is not community-oriented and would usually become confrontational with her.
“He is like a total pig. If that’s the headmaster, I never want to talk to him back. He’s a pig. He responded (hostilely),” she said.
She said that she cannot participate in school activities such as school fairs. She is wondering when the school would allow her back to be a part of her son’s education at the St Therese Primary School.
She stated that the head teacher banned her, too, because she took her son late to school a few times.
“Look the pain he is in. He can’t go to school. He has to be at home now. If the matter is not clarified, I am not sending him back. And if the teachers don’t speak to me properly and the children don’t have good furniture to sit down on, the child is not going back. The child who knock him down, I know the teacher and headmaster must know”, she said.
Lawrence added that she is not comfortable with the fact that she and the school administration share a frictional relationship since two of her children are attending the school.
The boy’s relatives are peeved at the idea of the school banning the parent from the school. “They told me ‘don’t come back in the compound madam’,” she said.
“Is she a terrorist? Does she have a gun?” “If her son had died in there, then how could she have gone in the compound? If it was something more serious—it is something serious, he is scarred for life; he has a three-inch cut on his forehead.
“And that headmaster’s meeting is more important than the child that he cannot speak to that parent. Up to now he cannot pick up the telephone and call and find out about the child’s condition”, said the boy’s aunt, Gertrude Lawrence.
“He needs to give us an explanation why he is doing this only to this family. Why is this happening only to this woman?”
The parent claimed, too, that the children’s workbooks are not being marked regularly and that indiscipline is on the rise at the school. She showed this newspaper her son’s books that were not marked recently.
Kaieteur News tried to make contact with Regional Education Officer, Mrs Shafiran Bhajan, but she was in Georgetown. Primary Schools Education Officer, Mrs Zaira Hussein, was not available. The school’s head teacher was also not available for comment.
Attorney- at- Law, Patricia Bacchus, made contact with the school’s headmaster on behalf of the family and tried to ascertain the legal implications of banning a parent from a public school.
She said that the head teacher related that he banned the mother from the school, “because she took the child to school at 9 (am).”
“He couldn’t answer me; he said he was in a meeting. The man told me he can’t investigate. He is busy. Usually you would expect something so serious; they would take some sort of interest. It is quite disturbing the older brother had to call and inform the family,” Bacchus told Kaieteur News.

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