The mother of the 13-year-old boy who stabbed his classmate in the head with a screwdriver is claiming that her son is being victimised after teachers and students objected to his return to school.
Since the October 28th stabbing at the Cummings Lodge Secondary School, the 13-year-old is yet to resume attending classes. He was charged with attempted murder as a result of the stabbing.
According to the boy’s mother, on Monday she took her son to school on the advice of the magistrate but was met with objections by some of the teaching staff. The woman explained that she was allowed to take her son into the compound and was instructed by the headmistress to take the boy into the deputy’s office. “I had to take him into the deputy’s office from the children’s eye like he’s a murderer,” the woman said.
Soon after, a few teachers came into the office and started to protest the boy’s re-entry into the school. “They start getting on bad; that they don’t want him back in school,” the mother said.
At one point, the mother claimed that one teacher referred to her son as “a lil murderer” before refusing to teach the boy.
The mother explained that she became upset and returned with her son to the headmistress’s office with news of the teachers’ objections. However, she said, she was told that the headmistress could do nothing about it.
“I took him home because it was a whole commotion. If that’s the teachers he had to be around and the teachers that got to teach him, what sense I leave him there? ’Cause they’re going to victimise him,” she said.
When contact was made with the school, a teacher confirmed that some staff members had indeed raised objections to the boy’s re-entry. The teacher further said that the boy’s classmates had refused to even step into the classroom if he was in it.
The teacher emphasised that the mother was not asked to take her son home but instead took the action herself. She added that the boy had been allowed entry into the compound as well as the classroom and expressed the belief that the issue was one of safety.
“Right now I don’t know what to do,” the boy’s mother said. She explained that on Monday she went to the Beterverwagting department of the Ministry of Education seeking help and was told by a representative that she would be contacted later that day after investigations were carried out at the school. However, she said, she was never called with an update.
She subsequently went back to the ministry yesterday but was told that the person who initially took her report was unavailable and would contact her at a later date. “I don’t know what’s my next step but I will pursue it; my son has to be in school. That’s the most important thing; for my son to turn out back to school and get his education,” the mother said. She continued, “He’s not a bad student; he doesn’t miss school and he’s having good grades, so I’m going to walk with my son until the end of it. I’m getting frustrated but I still have to hold on and it’s taking a real great impact on him, the whole situation.”
Meanwhile, she intends to follow up violations of her son’s rights, including his imprisonment at the Beterverwagting Police Station with four male adults.
“My son, a 13-year-old child, has been victimised; from the school, the station… everybody is trying to victimise my son,” she said.
One day after the school stabbing, the 13-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder. He was remanded but was subsequently granted bail.
