Five-day suspension for student who beat Cedros teen

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

A stu­dent has been sus­pend­ed for five days af­ter a 13-year-old Ce­dros Sec­ondary stu­dent was beat­en.

The in­ci­dent, in which the Form One stu­dent suf­fered in­juries, was cap­tured in a 24-sec­ond video that has cir­cu­lat­ed wide­ly on so­cial me­dia.

Yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said the in­ci­dent, in which the 13-year-old was lured to­wards a near­by shop by some­one she con­sid­ered a friend and at­tacked, oc­curred near the com­mu­ni­ty pavil­ion and not on the school’s com­pound. It said the in­ci­dent was re­port­ed to the school’s vice-prin­ci­pals and a meet­ing was held with the par­ents of both stu­dents.

How­ev­er, one has since been sus­pend­ed from school for five days, while both teens were re­ferred to the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

How­ev­er, the moth­er of the 13-year-old stu­dent said she is seek­ing a school trans­fer for her daugh­ter and in­tends to pur­sue crim­i­nal charges.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, the moth­er said the as­sault oc­curred on Oc­to­ber 26 while her daugh­ter was wait­ing for a school bus af­ter class­es. She al­leged that a stu­dent the girl con­sid­ered a friend lured her to­wards a near­by shop be­fore at­tack­ing her.

The moth­er said the stu­dent re­moved her shirt be­fore strik­ing her daugh­ter, throw­ing her to the ground and caus­ing her to hit her head on a lamp­post. The girl suf­fered in­juries to both knees and is still limp­ing, her moth­er said.

The school prin­ci­pal con­tact­ed the moth­er af­ter the in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, she said she was up­set that her in­jured and bleed­ing daugh­ter was sent home by bus.

“She should have called me im­me­di­ate­ly for me to pick up my child,” she said.

The moth­er took her daugh­ter to Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. Af­ter leav­ing about 1 am the fol­low­ing day, they went to a po­lice sta­tion to re­port the in­ci­dent.

“I would like to have jus­tice for my child. She did not de­serve this,” the moth­er said, de­scrib­ing her daugh­ter as lov­ing and say­ing she had not had prob­lems or fights with oth­er stu­dents. “This bul­ly­ing in schools needs to be dealt with.”

The moth­er said she was al­so con­cerned that the stu­dent ac­cused of at­tack­ing her daugh­ter had since re­turned to school, fol­low­ing the sus­pen­sion. The moth­er ap­pealed to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Michael Dowlath to in­ter­vene and help with a trans­fer, say­ing she no longer feels safe send­ing her daugh­ter to the school.

She said her daugh­ter had been teased about her ap­pear­ance, in­clud­ing her shoes, since start­ing at Ce­dros Sec­ondary.

The moth­er of five said her daugh­ter wakes at 4 am to pre­pare for school and of­ten leaves home be­fore 6 am to trav­el to Ce­dros.

She wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion hold­ing par­ents ac­count­able for their chil­dren’s ac­tions. The moth­er said the in­ci­dent had tak­en a se­ri­ous emo­tion­al toll on her daugh­ter, who was strug­gling to cope.

“She’s not do­ing well. She’s not eat­ing, she’s bare­ly sleep­ing. When you’re try­ing to talk to her, she’s very dis­tant with us,” she said.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly pledged a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to school vi­o­lence and warned that stu­dents who en­gage in vi­o­lent be­hav­iour could face ex­pul­sion. The Gov­ern­ment is al­so con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion to hold par­ents ac­count­able for their chil­dren’s ac­tions.