Rasta student transferred

THE Ministry of Education has quietly transferred dread locked twelve-year-old Kalifa Logan to the Five Rivers Junior Secondary school, where there are students with similar hairstyles. However she was unaware of that decision as was the Vice Principal of Five Rivers, Joseph De Gannes. Mervyn Critchlow, the ministry’s communications specialist told Newsday yesterday the matter was being “blown out of proportion.” However he said a decision was made last Friday to “reassign” Logan to the three-year Five Rivers Junior Secondary, because of the refusal to accept her by Principal Sr Adriana Noel of St Charles High School. Asked if the girl’s parents had accepted the decision, he said he had no word on that but “this is the ministry’s position.” He insisted that the decision was arrived at following discussions with Logan’s parents, officials of both schools and school supervisors. When Newsday spoke to Logan and her mother yesterday they knew nothing of the ministry’s decision as did Vice Principal De Gannes. 

He said he checked with the secretary and there was nothing recorded on the matter, “so as far as I know there is nothing on the matter.”
He advised that Newsday check with Principal Joan Bridgewater today. She was on school business. Critchlow said based on Logan’s marks in the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exams she was transferred to Five Rivers. However Critchlow could not provide Newsday with that mark. He said the “cut off” mark for girls at St Charles was 500 and at Five Rivers 558. Critchlow acknowledged that St Charles was a private school and the ministry was paying for school places to accommodate children, but he said the school had its rules.  He said he did not know “off hand” the fees being paid by the ministry for private school places because “fees differed from school to school.” Asked about the expenses already incurred by Logan’s parents and the fact that the child was being removed from a five-year to a three-year school, Critchlow had nothing to say.

He insisted that in “view of the situation, after consultations she has been reassigned.” Asked when the transfer takes effect, Critchlow couldn’t say.  Critchlow stressed that “people are missing the point.” He referred to student information provided by most Government secondary schools, which requested that students conform to the schools’ rules and standards. “Where it talks about uniforms and suitable hairstyles and grooming, hairstyles are to be simple and suitable, no tinting or colouring is allowed, no jewelry except tiny stoppers and wrist watch. Multiple earrings or nose rings are not allowed and girls must be well groomed.” Told that most students at Government secondary schools did not conform to those rules, he said the rules were set by the schools and their parent teacher associations, “and at Five Rivers there are students who have the same hairstyle (ras) and they accept it.” When Newsday contacted Chairman of the Catholic School Board of Management, Hazel Reis, for a comment on the matter, she said, “I can’t make any pronouncements because I do not have all the facts.” She said she was yet to speak to Sr Noel.