Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Board of Man­age­ment of Holy Name Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, has an­nounced an in­de­pen­dent re­view process fol­low­ing re­cent pub­lic con­cerns and ex­pe­ri­ences shared in re­la­tion to al­le­ga­tions against prin­ci­pal Sis­ter Re­nee Hall.

The move comes days af­ter wide­spread on­line back­lash, where for­mer and cur­rent stu­dents ac­cused Sis­ter Re­nee of emo­tion­al abuse and mis­treat­ment fol­low­ing a Moth­er’s Day pro­file pub­lished by Guardian Me­dia, which high­light­ed her 25-year ca­reer at the school and de­scribed her “spir­i­tu­al moth­er­hood” to­wards stu­dents.

The Board said the re­view com­mit­tee will be chaired by Vin­cent Per­ri­era and will in­clude pro­fes­sion­als in psy­chol­o­gy, in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, com­pli­ance, gov­er­nance, and in­sti­tu­tion­al lead­er­ship.

It added that Lu­cent Re­search has been en­gaged as an in­de­pen­dent third par­ty to sup­port the se­cure col­lec­tion and man­age­ment of in­for­ma­tion and sub­mis­sions as part of the process.

The re­view will al­low rel­e­vant par­ties to con­fi­den­tial­ly share con­cerns, ex­pe­ri­ences, and any in­for­ma­tion con­sid­ered ma­te­r­i­al to the in­quiry. The Board said de­tails of the con­fi­den­tial sub­mis­sion process and re­lat­ed pro­ce­dures will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed once fi­nalised.

What be­gan as an in­spi­ra­tional Moth­er’s Day fea­ture by Guardian Me­dia quick­ly es­ca­lat­ed in­to wide­spread crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia, with hun­dreds of users—many claim­ing to be past and present stu­dents—post­ing al­le­ga­tions rang­ing from emo­tion­al dis­tress to sys­temic mis­treat­ment.

The al­le­ga­tions sparked na­tion­al dis­cus­sion, with an on­line pe­ti­tion call­ing for Sis­ter Re­nee’s re­moval at­tract­ing more than 1,000 sig­na­tures.

In an up­date fol­low­ing its May 12 state­ment, the Board said an In­de­pen­dent Re­view Com­mit­tee, sep­a­rate from both the Board and school ad­min­is­tra­tion, has now been for­mal­ly es­tab­lished.

It said it recog­nis­es the se­ri­ous­ness of the con­cerns be­ing raised pub­licly and ac­knowl­edged the strong emo­tions sur­round­ing the mat­ter.

“The well­be­ing, dig­ni­ty, and holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of stu­dents re­main of para­mount im­por­tance,” the Board said, adding that it is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the process is han­dled re­spon­si­bly, fair­ly, in­de­pen­dent­ly, and with due sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

The Board said the find­ings of the re­view will guide any fur­ther steps deemed nec­es­sary.

Holy Name Con­vent’s Board had pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that the in­quiry would be con­duct­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly of both the Board and the lead­er­ship of the Do­mini­can Sis­ters of St Cather­ine of Siena, and would ad­here to the pro­to­cols of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

It al­so urged that cur­rent stu­dents chan­nel any com­plaints through ex­ist­ing process­es, while en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to par­tic­i­pate through the pro­ce­dures to be out­lined in the forth­com­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The Board re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, stu­dent well­be­ing, and due process, while re­main­ing guid­ed by the val­ues on which Holy Name Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, was found­ed, in­clud­ing truth, com­pas­sion, dig­ni­ty, and ser­vice.