Holy Name Convent launches independent probe into allegations against new principal

The Board of Man­age­ment of Holy Name Con­vent Port of Spain has an­nounced an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to cur­rent and past al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing new­ly ap­point­ed prin­ci­pal Sr Re­nee Hall, fol­low­ing pub­lic con­cern raised by stu­dents, par­ents, alum­ni and mem­bers of the wider school com­mu­ni­ty.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the board ac­knowl­edged the “con­cerns, emo­tions and ex­pe­ri­ences” be­ing shared pub­licly since Hall’s ap­point­ment and said the mat­ter was deeply per­son­al for many con­nect­ed to the in­sti­tu­tion.

The board said the well­be­ing, dig­ni­ty and de­vel­op­ment of stu­dents re­main cen­tral to the mis­sion and val­ues of the school and the Do­mini­can Sis­ters of St Cather­ine of Siena.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be con­duct­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly of both the board and the lead­er­ship of the Do­mini­can Sis­ters. The process will al­so fol­low the pro­ce­dures es­tab­lished by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Board mem­bers said they unan­i­mous­ly agreed that the process should re­main sep­a­rate from both the school’s man­age­ment and the re­li­gious or­der to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and due process.

The state­ment did not spec­i­fy the na­ture of the al­le­ga­tions against Hall or pro­vide de­tails on who would con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, the board said fur­ther en­gage­ment with stake­hold­ers would con­tin­ue in the com­ing weeks as part of what it de­scribed as an open process.

The is­sue has gen­er­at­ed wide­spread dis­cus­sion on so­cial me­dia, with for­mer and cur­rent stu­dents, par­ents and alum­ni shar­ing ex­pe­ri­ences and opin­ions sur­round­ing the ap­point­ment.

The board urged cur­rent stu­dents to make com­plaints through ex­ist­ing re­port­ing chan­nels while en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to par­tic­i­pate in pro­ce­dures that are ex­pect­ed to be out­lined dur­ing the in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

It al­so stressed that Holy Name Con­vent’s val­ues of “ex­cel­lence, com­pas­sion, ser­vice and above all, Ver­i­tas — Truth” would guide the process mov­ing for­ward.

“We will seek and en­cour­age truth in all of these mat­ters,” the state­ment said.

The board called for pa­tience, un­der­stand­ing and prayer from the pub­lic while the mat­ter is ad­dressed.

Holy Name Con­vent Port of Spain is one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long­stand­ing sec­ondary schools for girls and has a large alum­ni net­work lo­cal­ly and abroad. The school has his­tor­i­cal­ly main­tained a strong aca­d­e­m­ic rep­u­ta­tion and promi­nent pres­ence with­in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor.

No time­line was giv­en for the com­ple­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or for the re­lease of its find­ings.