SASCHA WIL­SON

A nine-year-old boy who was ex­pelled from a pri­vate school al­most two weeks ago be­cause he com­plained about be­ing bul­lied re­turned to class­es yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a court or­der. Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an in­ter­im in­junc­tion on Tues­day night or­der­ing the Cedar Grove Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School to re­in­state the Grade 3 stu­dent.

At around 8 am yes­ter­day, a court mar­shal served the or­der on of­fi­cials at the school in Palmiste, fol­low­ing which the child was dropped off by his par­ents. Named as de­fen­dants in the law­suit chal­leng­ing the school’s de­ci­sion to ex­pel the child are the school, chair­man Flair Ram­per­sad, Sha­heed Al­la­ham and teach­ers Jen­ny Ramkissoon and Al­li­son Se­bro-Bap­tiste.

In grant­i­ng the or­der, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said that bul­ly­ing is a se­ri­ous is­sue.

“Any child who makes such a com­plaint should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. In this case, the court feels with a high de­gree of as­sur­ance that it will be es­tab­lished that the child was bul­lied. There is med­ical ev­i­dence which sup­ports his claim of be­ing struck on the arm and there is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest the child has phys­i­o­log­i­cal is­sues,” he said.

“Our chil­dren must be pro­tect­ed and a school should be a safe haven. No child should be ridiculed for ad­vanc­ing a le­git­i­mate com­plaint and the bal­ance of con­ve­nience favours the grant­i­ng of in­junc­tive re­lief so as to en­sure the rights of the child to and ed­u­ca­tion is pre­served.”

The judge added that the child must al­so be pro­vid­ed with all the class notes and ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als he would have missed. The prin­ci­pal was or­dered to “en­sure the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al well­be­ing and safe­ty” of the child at school and “re­frain from mak­ing dis­parag­ing re­marks or ac­cus­ing the child pub­licly or pri­vate­ly of be­ing a liar or of fab­ri­cat­ing events or com­plaints of bul­ly­ing and in­tim­i­da­tion.”

The child, an A stu­dent, on­ly start­ed at­tend­ing the school on Jan­u­ary 13 af­ter his par­ents paid $9,700 in fees. Ac­cord­ing to the court doc­u­ments, on Jan­u­ary 17 he was walk­ing to his class with his lunch when the door of the Grade 4 class was force­ful­ly kicked open by an old­er boy. The door struck him on his arm, caus­ing him to fall to the ground and he be­gan cry­ing. The boy said the old­er boy’s friend, who is al­so in Grade 4, fol­lowed him a few times and sent a stu­dent to tell him he was a “load of crap.” She al­so called him an id­iot.

The boy’s par­ents claimed the school al­so re­fused to take any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against the stu­dents or arrange a meet­ing with their par­ents. In his af­fi­davit, the boy’s moth­er said the prin­ci­pal ac­cused her son of be­ing a liar and sent his son to the Grade 4 class where Ramkissoon and Se­bro-Bap­tiste told the class he was a liar, made up sto­ries about the two chil­dren and could not hear well.

On Feb­ru­ary 3, the boy’s fa­ther was in­formed via email of his son’s ex­pul­sion. He said the en­tire in­ci­dent has left his son trau­ma­tised and he has re­ceived coun­selling.