The teacher ac­cused of sex­u­al­ly ha­rass­ing fe­male stu­dents of the Siparia West Sec­ondary School has been ques­tioned by the po­lice in con­nec­tion with the lat­est com­plaint made against him.

A source said the teacher did not show up for class­es but a meet­ing was held to dis­cuss the al­le­ga­tions.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said it had re­ceived a re­port of mis­con­duct which is now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ad­vis­es, as it re­lates to the al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct by a staff mem­ber at the Siparia West Sec­ondary School, that the mat­ter is be­ing ad­dressed, ac­cord­ing to es­tab­lished pro­to­cols, by the School Su­per­vi­sion and Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion (SS­MD) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS),” the min­istry said.

“The pro­ce­dures and pro­to­cols for in­ves­ti­gat­ing mat­ters of this na­ture are very spe­cif­ic, in the in­ter­est of pro­tect­ing stu­dents.”

Giv­ing de­tails of the re­port, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of ha­rass­ment against a stu­dent by a staff mem­ber at the school was ini­ti­at­ed on Sep­tem­ber 20, 2022, when a re­port was made on the mat­ter of al­leged in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour.

“A re­port was then made to the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice, and the stu­dent, along with SS­MD per­son­nel, met with the prin­ci­pal.”

The stu­dent’s par­ents were asked to vis­it the school and on Sep­tem­ber 28, the staff mem­ber in ques­tion met with the prin­ci­pal and vice prin­ci­pal.

The min­istry al­so said last week Fri­day, of­fi­cers from the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit met with the stu­dent, par­ent and Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices per­son­nel.

In mat­ters of a sen­si­tive na­ture, the min­istry said it must fol­low all the pro­to­cols and pro­ce­dures.

On Mon­day, a source said four re­ports of ha­rass­ment had been made.

Fe­male teach­ers have al­so re­port­ed feel­ing un­com­fort­able around the said teacher.

Siparia West Sec­ondary has been plagued by neg­a­tive re­ports for over a decade.