NPTA: Don’t go after teachers

Parents should not take matters into their own hands if they feel their children are being mistreated in schools.

This was the advice of National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA) president Raffiena Ali-Boodoosingh during a sod-turning ceremony for the new NPTA headquarters in Carlsen Field yesterday.

Ali-Boodoosingh said abuse of students by teachers, and sometimes even principals, was a real problem in schools.

“I want to tell you that abuse of children by teachers and some principals is a real and existing issue in our schools and when it happens, we hear on the news, a parent knocking on the door, we hear a parent slapping teachers or doing negative.”

However, she said not all reported cases were true. She pinpointed the recent case at the Ste Madeleine East Secondary school where a pregnant teacher accused a parent of attacking her with a piece of wood on the school’s compound.

“The media never highlights what really happened, I can go back to Ste Madeleine Secondary in the recent past because what was told was the not the real story.”

Advising parents not to make their “rights into wrongs,” she said, “You are the voices for your children, don’t take your right and make it wrong. Don’t go to the schools, don’t go with weapons, don’t go to slap down anybody, Put pen to paper, when you do that then it counts and we can see a difference.”

Instead, parents with grievances should contact their PTA or the NPTA.

“I am saying instead of doing those things, call your PTA president, get your region involved, discuss the issues at meetings, bring it to the NPTA, we can go from there and represent you. The PTA is about representation.”

Ali-Boodoosingh said the NPTA has been saving and waiting for 17 years to begin its own headquarters.

Chairman of the NPTA’s Land & Building Committee, Clarence Mendoza used his address to advocate for changes that might curb the domestic violence murder rate.

“Today we must stand up for them because they are being bullied, they are being murdered senselessly. When we talk about the crime rate in TT it has nothing to do with gangs. “We must be mindful that it is not gangs that are killing our women but our boyfriends and lovers and ex-husbands that society must now step into place and take part.”

With an NPTA presence in over 600 schools throughout the country, Mendoza believed there was a chance to make a difference from the ground up.

“We must now start the ground-work school by school, parent by parent. Start the job.”