The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION Minister Jeffrey Lloyd yesterday hit out at criticisms from parents of students at Government High School in the wake of a boy’s fatal stabbing, calling the accusations he heard on Tuesday “one heap of rubbish”.

At a press conference at the school yesterday, attended by National Security Minister Marvin Dames and other officials, Mr Lloyd defended educators saying they are not the ones who “manufacture violence” on school campuses.

GHS was placed on lockdown after two teens were stabbed by fellow students; one boy died as a result and another remains in hospital. After the attack, parents became irate outside the school’s gates lamenting safety concerns and a lack of information about who had been injured.

Yesterday, Mr Lloyd, who spent years working with at-risk young men, defended educators.

“We have been called by God for this occasion, for this time, for this re ason for this assignment to impart to our beloved young people and to invite them to life is who we are as educators. But over the years, now going into my near 40th year, we have to become more than that….we’re counsellors. We take money out of our own pockets and assist our children, who we regard as our children … and yet with all due regard I listened to the parents outside yesterday afternoon talking one heap of rubbish. Accusing us, you and me. We do not manufacture violence on these wonderful campuses.

“We do not teach violence, in fact we bring respect and stand in the place of places that have been a gap in the lives of these children— (who) have been neglected or abandoned….you see it over and over again and they’re angry because they feel disrespected by the people from whom they should be respected, their parents, their family, and their friends and so we dear educators are the repository of their anger on these campuses.”

He highlighted how it has been a challenging year in education due to the coronavirus pandemic and thanked educators for their work especially when dealing with parents in regards to children’s school attendance.

“We’ve had to go from face-to-face to virtual and then to hybrid (instruction). It’s not been easy and you have done it my dear beloved faculty and staff,” he said.

“You’ve done it and done it excellently. I thank you and congratulate you and yet this is what makes me annoyed. We are being accused and blamed. All of this we do. “You all go into these communities, looking for children, call them on the phone, ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ And the parents (are) giving you some lame, some nonsensical excuse. ‘Oh well he ain’t wake up this morning. Oh well we went to bed late last night oh whatever.’

“I said from the beginning. I’ve said all my life. Education is everyone’s business. Nobody can take a pass. We in the Ministry of Education, you here on this campus, you are doing extraordinarily well and you’ve always done so and you love doing it because you are an educator and you’ve been called by God to do this. So we don’t deserve no blame and accusations. We have gone beyond the call of duty,” Mr Lloyd said.

For his part, Mr Dames lamented that the suspects had not been turned in yet, even though people know who they are.

“You had this incident. You know who the perpetrators are because they are juveniles themselves and students but yet today as we are gathered here, no one has come forth with those young men,” Mr Dames said. “No one has turned them over to the police today and I am very aware that police would have spoken to parents and would’ve spoken to other relatives and still today they’re not in police custody.

“….It speaks to a bigger problem. It’s okay for us to be angry. It’s okay for us to be sad. It’s okay for us to ask these tough questions, but at the end of the day the fundamental question is what are we doing about it? How can we move from this place to a better place?

“This one incident is a reflection of the challenges we face throughout our communities. The question is not what’s going on on our school campuses because this is a singular incident but what is really is a microcosm of what’s taking place throughout our society and the fact that each of us bear a responsibility and until we come to acknowledge that fact this spiral will continue.”

Yesterday, Bahamas Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson called for officials to put police back in schools, to provide more training and resources for security officers, to instal cameras in school common areas and to purchase metal detectors for each school, among other suggestions.

The high school’s principal, Eloise Whyms, told reporters of the safety measures in place at the school.

“What occurred yesterday we did not know,” she said. “We didn’t prepare for it. What we do on a regular basis as students come into the school each morning at the student gate they are thoroughly searched from head to toe.

“We do our metal detecting and we do everything—bag searches, whatever—so when we let them through the gate for the day we are assured of their safety…… That is just one isolated incident and we will bounce back.”

She said the school has had partnerships with police in the past to help with security concerns, however she does not think a police presence is needed on the campus every day.

“I want to clarify that the presence, in terms of a police, here every day, I really don’t think that’s necessary. Honestly I don’t. You know we have police that come by from time to time and see how we are doing. We are a phone call away from the Grove. I call that our station and if you were doing your records you would see over the years that the challenges that Government High faced, they had dropped.”

As for Tuesday’s attack, Ms Whyms said it happened quickly.

“It was not a fight where whatever was done was done very quickly and they ran off the scene because on a lunch break there’s seven administrators here and we are stationed in different locations of the school. There was nothing alerting, a lot of noise or something that caused persons to just say something is going on like that.”

Asked what alerted them, she replied: “My administrator, who is nearest to that point, as he stands and he observed when he turned like that he saw a young man running with a knife.”

The deceased teen has been identified as 15-year-old Kenm Paul.