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Monday, February 24, 2025

Parents knock school for ‘ignoring’ son’s complaints about bullying

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
140 days ago
20241007

The moth­er of teenag­er Jay­den Lalchan who end­ed his life on Oc­to­ber 3 fol­low­ing an al­leged bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent at school, is not hap­py with how school of­fi­cials han­dled their com­plaints.

The moth­er claimed she is still await­ing a call back from of­fi­cials so the mat­ter could be ad­dressed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at their home at Broomage Road, Princes Town, yes­ter­day, Jay­den’s par­ents Fa­ree­da and Ro­han Lalchan lament­ed the lack of ac­tion by of­fi­cials at St Stephen’s Col­lege over a pro­longed pe­ri­od, to ad­dress the nu­mer­ous re­ports of bul­ly­ing made by the 15-year-old.

One day af­ter the Form Four stu­dent was found dead as a re­sult of self-harm, stu­dents and staff from the school par­tic­i­pat­ed in a peace march through the streets of Princes Town.

Re­veal­ing what the lat­est bul­ly­ing con­fronta­tion against Jay­den had en­tailed, Fa­ree­da ex­plained in the in­ci­dent ear­li­er that week, stu­dents were throw­ing words at her son and re­port­ed­ly snatched his mask off his face.

This she said, had prompt­ed Jay­den to hit back at one of them, catch­ing the main bul­ly on the nose-bridge.

Fa­ree­da claimed, “Since then, he start­ed send­ing threats to my son and he (Jay­den) was scared to even leave the school com­pound.”

She claimed a teacher had to es­cort Jay­den home.

“He had this fear the bul­ly and his friends would at­tack him once he left the school.”

Re­veal­ing she had vis­it­ed the school af­ter the in­ci­dent and spo­ken to the Dean, Fa­ree­da said she was told sev­er­al stu­dents had to be in­ter­viewed first.

Fight­ing back tears, she said, “Up to this day, I nev­er re­ceived that phone call.”

Asked if she knew why Jay­den had been sin­gled out and was be­ing bul­lied, she said, “From what I heard, they go around and just choose kids ran­dom­ly. They go around look­ing for the weak­est one.”

Fa­ree­da claimed at least one oth­er boy was al­so be­ing bul­lied by the group.

The moth­er de­scribed her late son as a qui­et, soft-spo­ken boy.

“If you need help with some­thing, he would help.

“He don’t mix and min­gle too much with every­one.”

Fa­ree­da said he was a top stu­dent and was up for an award in the area of Math­e­mat­ics as he had top-scored three con­sec­u­tive school terms.

She said Jay­den had set his sights on a ca­reer in In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy.

Both Fa­ree­da and Ro­han said the school failed Jay­den.

She claimed af­ter speak­ing with the Dean, she was re­ferred to the Prin­ci­pal who had been ab­sent from the school and lat­er claimed not to have known about the in­ci­dent.

She claimed the cav­a­lier at­ti­tude of school of­fi­cials had led her to form the opin­ion that, “They brushed every­thing off.”

Us­ing an ex­ple­tive, Fa­ree­da said, “It is not the first time he (Jay­den) made a com­plaint.”

She said her son had sub­mit­ted writ­ten re­ports about the bul­ly­ing as he was scared to even come out of his class­room, or even come home on his own many days.

His fa­ther Ro­han said, “He nev­er want­ed us to get in­volved in any type of prob­lems be­cause of the sit­u­a­tion, so he de­cid­ed to see if he could deal with this on his own.”

“This has been go­ing on for years,” Ro­han stat­ed.

Jay­den was a US cit­i­zen—and Ro­han strong­ly be­lieves his na­tion­al­i­ty, his ac­cent, his voice, and the fact that he wears a mask—“They looked for every­thing to pick on him.”

Jay­den’s par­ents said the ver­bal in­sults even­tu­al­ly turned phys­i­cal and the lat­est in­ci­dent would have brought Jay­den to the brink.

St Stephen’s Col­lege is an An­gli­can-run school. Ef­forts to con­tact the An­gli­can Ed­u­ca­tion Man­age­ment Board and Bish­op of the An­gli­can Church Claude Berke­ley about the al­le­ga­tions at the school were un­suc­cess­ful.

If you or any­one you know has been bat­tling thoughts of self-harm please con­tact Life­line at 800-5588; Child­line 800-4321 or the 24-Hour Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Hot­line 800– COPE (2673).


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