Johnann Jer­ry-Lovell ar­rived yes­ter­day at the Guardian build­ing fum­ing and de­mand­ed that she speak with a re­porter.

“They now send home my son from school be­cause he doesn’t have on a mask,” she said ges­tur­ing to her 13-year-old who was still in his uni­form.

The mono­gram may not have been recog­nised by many as it said Good­will, with its mot­to, Not Char­i­ty, Just Chance.

Good­will In­dus­tries lo­cat­ed at Fitzblack­man Dri­ve, Port-of-Spain is a tech­ni­cal vo­ca­tion­al skill cen­tre that caters for those Jer­ry-Lovell de­scribed as “spe­cial needs chil­dren.”

Jer­ry-Lovell told Guardian Me­dia that as far as she was aware, the mask man­date for all schools was lift­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE). This was some­thing she was grate­ful for, as she said her son suf­fered from seizures and the mask would ex­ac­er­bate his con­di­tion.

“When he had to wear the mask, he would come in the ve­hi­cle breath­less and his eyes would be red. Dur­ing the va­ca­tion just last month, he had on­ly two or three episodes. When he was wear­ing the mask, he was get­ting six or sev­en.”

There­fore, she said, she was con­fused when her son told her on Mon­day that he must wear a mask the fol­low­ing day.

“I in­di­cat­ed to him that you are not go­ing to be wear­ing any more mask and I am send­ing you with a note.”

But it seemed as if the note had no ef­fect and Jer­ry-Lovell said she was asked to come back for him.

“They called me on the phone and told me that he’s no longer wel­come in the school be­cause he’s not wear­ing a mask and he sat in the car park from quar­ter to eight un­til I came at eleven o’clock, un­su­per­vised. If rain had fall­en, he would have been soaked.”

Jer­ry-Lovell said the school’s prin­ci­pal again told her that she in­sist­ed that masks be worn at the school.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, the son in­ter­ject­ed and said, “Miss told me I have to put on a mask if I want to go for wa­ter, lunch and break, no mask means no wa­ter or break.”

Jer­ry-Lovell said her son was now won­der­ing what he did wrong.

“The prin­ci­pal did not even for­mal­ly say that she was keep­ing the mask man­date. We have a What­sApp group and he’s been go­ing to school with­out the mask since school start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 12. Mon­day was the on­ly day he came home and said he need­ed a mask.”

She said she went to the MOE which is oblique­ly op­po­site Guardian Me­dia’s head of­fice and she was told that there was lit­tle they could do.

“They said yes, it’s a Gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed school but it’s al­so pri­vate and from what the min­istry an­nounced be­fore, the choice is mine, so I don’t know what go­ing on.”

Jer­ry-Lovell said she saw no need to get a med­ical ex­emp­tion for her son as she be­lieves his con­di­tion is straight for­ward.

“Lack of oxy­gen caus­es seizures,” she said slow­ly.

Jer­ry-Lovell said she had now ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion as she be­lieved her son was un­fair­ly be­ing de­nied an ed­u­ca­tion.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the school’s prin­ci­pal, Bar­bara Al­leyne who was al­so the in­sti­tu­tion’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer. She con­firmed the in­ci­dent but said that Jer­ry-Lovell was a trou­ble­mak­er.

“Our rules nev­er changed and she (Jer­ry-Lovell) want­ed to change the rules and I am say­ing no,” Al­leyne said.

She in­di­cat­ed to Guardian Me­dia that the school re­cent­ly had an out­break of the flu and fur­ther­more she as prin­ci­pal nev­er lift­ed the mask man­date which was in place since the pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Al­leyne said she was not mak­ing any ex­cep­tions.

“He is not wel­comed back to the school, be­cause I have over a hun­dred chil­dren and you can’t have that one break­ing all the rules all the time.”

Al­leyne added that the school’s lay­out did not al­low for so­cial dis­tanc­ing and that was an­oth­er rea­son that masks were to be worn.

The prin­ci­pal al­so de­nied that the boy was made to wait for his moth­er in an area that was un­safe for him.

She in­vit­ed Guardian Me­dia to vis­it the school and speak to the teach­ers and stu­dents about the be­hav­iour of Jer­ry-Lovell and her son.

Mean­while, Jer­ry-Lovell in­di­cat­ed to Guardian Me­dia that she would be tak­ing her son back to school to­day with­out a mask, on the ad­vice of her lawyer.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly but she did not re­spond up to press time.