Camille McEach­nie

The An­gli­can Board will look in­to an in­ci­dent that al­leged­ly took place at the Scar­bor­ough An­gli­can School be­tween a 12-year-old pupil who sat the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion on Ju­ly 1 and a se­nior staff mem­ber at the school.

Ac­cord­ing to the boy’s fa­ther, the se­nior staff mem­ber ac­cused the child of steal­ing the school’s tablet, which had to be re­turned the morn­ing of the ex­am.

The man al­leged that his son was called to the school’s of­fice via the in­ter­com dur­ing the ex­am’s break.

On ar­rival, the se­nior staff mem­ber in­quired about the school’s tablet which all SEA stu­dents were to re­turn that morn­ing. He told her in the haste to get to the ex­am, he had for­got­ten it.

It was then the staff mem­ber al­leged­ly ac­cused the boy of steal­ing it, telling him the po­lice would go to his house to get it, the fa­ther claims.

The fa­ther did a video record­ing on Ju­ly 1 of his trip to re­turn the tablet to the school.

The man said his fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly his son, re­main trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent, as chil­dren and par­ents are aware of it.

“Up to this morn­ing (Ju­ly 6), my son was not look­ing like him­self. The stress alone of hav­ing to do the ex­am, plus this stress is a lot for him. He is not cop­ing with the sit­u­a­tion well at all. I am not do­ing well as I am still very up­set about it.”

He added: “I feel my child is tar­get­ed be­cause I am a sin­gle par­ent.”

The Scar­bor­ough fa­ther said he came to this con­clu­sion, as oth­er chil­dren who for­got to re­turn their tablets were not called to the of­fice.

He told Guardian Me­dia he ini­tial­ly want­ed the in­ci­dent to re­main pri­vate. How­ev­er, he felt mak­ing it pub­lic would pre­vent oth­er stu­dents from fac­ing sim­i­lar trau­ma and clear his son’s name.

On Ju­ly 2, he called To­ba­go’s Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion to com­plain about the in­ci­dent. They told him to email the chief ex­am­in­er re­spon­si­ble for SEA and ex­plain the sit­u­a­tion, he said.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to To­ba­go’s Archdea­con and chair on the An­gli­can’s ad­vi­so­ry board chair, Fa­ther Phill Isaac.

He said he did not hear about the in­ci­dent but will look in­to the mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Marslyn Melville-Jack for com­ment on the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, she had not replied up to news time.