RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Of­fi­cials at the Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary School have start­ed check­ing the bags of stu­dents en­ter­ing the com­pound af­ter a stu­dent brought a knife in­to the school.

This fol­lowed con­cerns raised by Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art, who asked how a knife was brought on­to school grounds.

A re­port from a mem­ber of the school’s PTA gave de­tails of an al­ter­ca­tion on Tues­day in­volv­ing a fe­male Form Four stu­dent and a fe­male Form Two stu­dent. The Form 4 stu­dent al­leged­ly grazed the Form 2 stu­dent’s leg with a knife.

“The in­jury showed signs of clot­ting by the end of the school day, spark­ing out­rage from the Form 2 stu­dent’s par­ents. Af­ter school, the par­ents in­ter­vened and at­tacked a Form 3 stu­dent,” Stew­art said.

A 12-sec­ond video of the at­tack, which oc­curred on a school bus, was shared with CNC3 News.

Stew­art raised con­cerns about how the knife went un­de­tect­ed up­on en­try and called for an im­me­di­ate meet­ing with the par­ents and stu­dents in­volved.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said she is ex­pect­ing a de­tailed re­port on the in­ci­dent.

“The prin­ci­pal is com­pil­ing state­ments from par­ents, stu­dents, and wit­ness­es. Due to the na­ture of the in­ci­dent, the re­port will be es­ca­lat­ed to me,” she said.

Clarence Men­doza, pres­i­dent of the Con­cerned Par­ents Move­ment, who has a child at­tend­ing the school, al­so called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He said the al­ter­ca­tion start­ed be­cause of threats which were made on In­sta­gram.

The head of the TTPS Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit Michelle Row­ley-Pow­der al­so weighed in.

“We are aware that re­port an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has start­ed how­ev­er we would like to tell par­ents that the law has to take its course, do not get in­volved. The po­lice will do their part and we ex­pect the par­ents to do their part to up­hold the law,” she said.