An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-Lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Al­most one month af­ter the prin­ci­pal of the Cara­po RC Pri­ma­ry School at O’Meara Road South, Ari­ma, was re­port­ed­ly threat­ened by an an­gry par­ent for scold­ing his son, in­tim­ida­to­ry tac­tics by a re­li­gious fac­tion in the com­mu­ni­ty have forced her to go on sick leave.

The Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment (CEBM) yes­ter­day con­firmed the prin­ci­pal has been ab­sent from school since the Sep­tem­ber 19 in­ci­dent. The board’s Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Sharon Man­groo yes­ter­day said the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tive and teach­ing op­er­a­tions had not been ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed by the prin­ci­pal’s ab­sence.

A se­nior teacher has since been put in charge.

Man­groo said, “The prin­ci­pal is not fac­ing any puni­tive con­se­quences as a re­sult, as she is en­ti­tled to sick leave.”

The sit­u­a­tion was be­lieved to have stemmed from an in­ci­dent be­fore Sep­tem­ber 19, when it was al­leged a group of boys “stoned” a house in the neigh­bour­hood as they walked home. It was al­leged the home­own­er went to the school and de­mand­ed ac­cess to the per­pe­tra­tors so he could dis­ci­pline them. This was de­nied by the prin­ci­pal, who in­stead scold­ed the boys for the in­frac­tion.

It was un­clear what the stu­dents told their par­ents fol­low­ing the meet­ing with the prin­ci­pal. How­ev­er, a few par­ents re­port­ed­ly went to the school and threat­ened the of­fi­cial there. One par­ent threat­ened that “bod­ies will fall” if a cer­tain stu­dent was rep­ri­mand­ed.

Guardian Me­dia was told this in­ci­dent forced school of­fi­cials to in­crease se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for peo­ple go­ing on­to the school com­pound, which has not found favour with some par­ents. It was al­so re­port­ed that since the in­ci­dent, uniden­ti­fied cars with men dressed in Mus­lim wear have been dri­ving past the school and park­ing out­side the com­pound dur­ing the day. This, they re­port­ed, has left staff, pupils, their par­ents, and even res­i­dents liv­ing close by scared.

Man­groo said the sit­u­a­tion was un­sus­tain­able for the long term and the CEBM was ex­treme­ly con­cerned.

She said while they have not re­ceived any re­quest for trans­fers from the prin­ci­pal or staff, there were no guar­an­tees this would not oc­cur in fu­ture.

Man­groo said the CEBM was hop­ing to re­solve the is­sues, as they do not want to con­sid­er clos­ing the school in the in­ter­est of safe­ty, as the pupils will be hurt the most.

Head of the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment (SVD), Supt Michelle Row­ley-Pow­der, vis­it­ed the school with a team of coun­sel­lors and cri­sis in­ter­ven­tion ex­perts yes­ter­day, af­ter she was in­formed of the sit­u­a­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia as they left the fa­cil­i­ty fol­low­ing a meet­ing with of­fi­cials, she con­firmed that coun­selling had be­gun with the trau­ma­tised teach­ers and pupils.

Row­ley-Pow­der said in ad­di­tion to coun­selling, there would be a height­ened po­lice pres­ence in and around the school im­me­di­ate­ly. Se­lect­ing her words care­ful­ly, she ex­plained, “We are here at the school, and we are treat­ing with the is­sue of bul­ly­ing, which is very loud in the pub­lic do­main to­day.”

While she avoid­ed di­vulging de­tails of the on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the SVD head said, “At this point, we want to em­pha­sise to every mem­ber of the pub­lic, every mem­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go, that bul­ly­ing at any lev­el will not be con­doned.”

She added, “We in­tend to pro­vide a heavy po­lice pres­ence at the school on a dai­ly ba­sis, and we have be­gun coun­selling staff and treat­ing with the is­sues.” Row­ley-Pow­der’s team in­clud­ed the head of School In­ter­ven­tion Team/Out­reach Pro­gramme, W/Cpl Al­i­son Joseph-Guer­ra, and Rox­anne Palmiste-Sankar, of the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit.

Joseph-Guer­ra dis­played one of the an­ti-bul­ly­ing brochures her unit dis­trib­utes among stu­dents, ti­tled “Be A Bud­dy, Not A Bul­ly.” As one of the units un­der the purview of the SVD, the School In­ter­ven­tion Team/Out­reach Pro­gramme vis­its schools week­ly, lec­tur­ing stu­dents and teach­ers on de­viant be­hav­iours and ex­pos­ing them to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) an­ti-bul­ly­ing cam­paign.

Row­ley-Pow­der as­sured, “We will con­tin­ue while we treat with this mat­ter called bul­ly­ing.”

Re­fer­ring to the mat­ter as a na­tion­al is­sue, she urged, “Col­lec­tive­ly, we want cit­i­zens of T&T to do their part in treat­ing with bul­ly­ing.”

A team from the North­ern Di­vi­sion SVD will al­so be work­ing along­side of­fi­cers in the area in the com­ing days.

Row­ley-Pow­der stressed, “An­ti-bul­ly­ing is the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of all cit­i­zens, and our ap­proach as the TTPS is that no type of bul­ly­ing will be con­doned. Be each oth­er’s keep­er; look out for one an­oth­er and do not con­done acts of bul­ly­ing.”

She added, “We look for­ward to work­ing with the pub­lic in any type of mat­ter. Don’t be afraid to re­port bul­ly­ing. Don’t be afraid to re­port any type of crime.”