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Springer Memorial School Wrapper Update: The Education System Enters Its Darkest Hour

BU will not write too much about this except to beg for urgent divine intervention. As adults we are morally and legally bound to be caretakers of our children. What has transpired so far at Springer Memorial School involving a minor and a student is an indictment on all of us. All of us. The…

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Pauline Benjamin - Principal, Springer Memorial Secondary School
Pauline Benjamin – Principal, Springer Memorial Secondary School

BU will not write too much about this except to beg for urgent divine intervention. As adults we are morally and legally bound to be caretakers of our children. What has transpired so far at Springer Memorial School involving a minor and a student is an indictment on all of us. All of us.

The emotional scaring that continues to accrue to this child begs for an immediate intervention from someone, any bloody one. Are we a society? Are we focussed only on the economy? What say you Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart? You boasted how you had to intervene to resolve the Alexandra issue. Do something! Rescue your minister Ronald Jones, AGAIN.  We await the management style you will select to resolve this issue. You are the prime minister you know.

Police respond to incident involving Springer student

Added 08 February 2016

elecia-weekes-and-daughter

Elecia Weekes (centre) embracing her daughter outside the school gates. At left is Shelly Ross. (Picture by Xtra Vision Photography.)

POLICE WERE CALLED in at the Springer Memorial Secondary School this morning when the saga surrounding the 14-year-old schoolgirl took another turn.

Related articles

The child and her mother, Elecia Weekes, have been involved in a disciplinary row with the principal, which has resulted in her being out of the classroom for almost eight weeks.

Weekes called the police after she said her daughter was escorted to the gates by principal Pauline Bellamy and asked to take off her uniform. She has refused a transfer to Ellerslie Secondary and was told by Bellamy last week that the child is no longer on the roll at Springer and would be trespassing if she returned.

Police from District “A” responded and advised the family, which is being supported by children’s rights advocate Shelly Ross, to take the matter to the Ministry of Education. They are now awaiting word on when they will be able to meet with chief education officer Karen Best. (YB)

– See more at: http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/77607/police-respond-incident-involving-springer-student#sthash.L1FwfmNO.dpuf

547 responses to “Springer Memorial School Wrapper Update: The Education System Enters Its Darkest Hour”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    Any report on the meeting chaired by the MoE last we?

  2. ac Avatar
    ac

    According to the mother and advisers ” the best interest of the child” whatever that supposed to mean by their wayof thinking

  3. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    This “candy wrapper” issue has revealed there are a number of “sanctimonious hypocritical political yard-fowl contortionists” amongst us on BU.

    These “hypocritical contortionists” “vehemently demonize” a primary school principal for criticizing inappropriately dressed mothers who, in some cases, entered school compounds braless with their areola and nipples clearly seen through thin strapped blouses, and in spandex “tights” displaying the “intricacies” of their labia majora and pudendal clefts. (However, it was only when MoE Jones agreed with the principal, the contortionists twisted their comments to fall in line with Jones, thereby indicating they do not have any principles).

    Now they are writing about discipline. It is okay for a mother to go on the school’s premises with the bubbies and cleft of Venus on display, but it’s a travesty for a mother to enter Springer’s compound seeking a resolution to her daughter’s problem.

  4. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    David February 17, 2016 at 5:12 PM “There is a tendency to disregard the outlier positions. Although the majority of parents would have scolded the student if there is one who refuses those in authority must have the ability and the system must have the capacity to resolve to a win win position.”

    And what if there is no possibility of a win-win resolution?

    What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistable force?

  5. David Avatar
    David

    Those in authority my lead/manage.

  6. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    Gee Artax,
    I didn’t know what to say on this topic, but that second half of the first sentence of the second paragraph of yours…..
    You may have writing skills that need exploring 🙂

  7. ac Avatar
    ac

    you can lead a horse to water but you can/t make it drink as with the case of the mother and her one armed bandit tactics of calling the shots

  8. ac Avatar
    ac

    Tonight the principle of combermere displayed how easy it is to get children to respect the enviroment by demonstrating that all hands are necessary to keep this wonderful planet we call home clean.
    Every child was doing there part in helping to clean inside as well as outside of the school.
    Somebody ought to send the little girl mom a copy of the video

  9. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    I thought Parris was being political and I muted both his appearances tonite.Parris proves that he is a JA.I have never heard of any secondary school having their students paint their class rooms in the colour of their choice let alone painting the school at all.This is carrying it too far.Parris is simply showing he is a member of the Fatted Calf Brigade.Stupid man.I recall in the bad old colonial days we had to scrape and scrub the wooden desks at elementary school.The 7th standard boys were sent into the village to pluck a particular shrub which had tiny,firm blossoms which was used to scrub the desks.Painting the secondary school I went to was the responsibilty of either the government or the City Council.
    Parris is a JA bigtime.A political tool.Parris is no example of a Principal,if he has to make a call to CBC to ‘send dung de kamras,I got sumtin to say to buhbaydus ’bout dis springer ting ya hear….I got to show support fuh de minista who holin’ sum lix’.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @Gabriel

    Bear in mind Vere Parris is the head of BAPPSS.

  11. ac Avatar
    ac

    so did not david say we are living in a different era .the principle calls the media to demonstrate excellence in his students….. the mother of the child runs to the media to demonstrate that her rude and unmannerly child deserves right

  12. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    If Parris wanted to prove to his students that community work is part of their curriculum,I have no problem with that.Painting an old ladies home or a hostel or some similar project is good and is to be encouraged.Not what I saw on TV tonite.It’s ridiculous.Combermere students painting their school?Unheard of.Wrong.Another thing I have a problem is every event,cricket,football,a sponsored walk,a rally.everything is blue(aqua M) and yellow(gold).Westbury cemetery wall looks gawdy cheap and ugly.

  13. ac Avatar
    ac

    Yeah yeah yeah problem no1 everybody wants to tell principles how to manage the school. I suggest everybody open there own school problems solve..u see parris as political by calling media .how about the mother whose first and last instinct was to
    go to the media about a friggin candy wrapper wasn/t she being political ? Hey Parris was highlitining excellence in students nothing wrong with that

  14. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Gabriel February 18, 2016 at 8:53 PM “The 7th standard boys were sent into the village to pluck a particular shrub which had tiny,firm blossoms which was used to scrub the desks.”

    White head bush/Parthenium hysterophorus.

  15. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Gabriel February 18, 2016 at 9:09 PM “Westbury cemetery wall looks gawdy cheap and ugly.”

    What’s the matter with you?

    The duppies ain’t complaining.

  16. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Ta very much Simple.I’m informed.

  17. Sunshine Sunny Shine Avatar
    Sunshine Sunny Shine

    David

    The alternative to the child being away from school so long would be for the ministry to overturn the decision of suspension and come up with an alternative form of punishment that would allow the child to be still in school. As far as I am concern, a good cut ass by the head teacher would have sufficed, followed by another cut ass by the parent with the child tendering a letter of apology for her rudeness, if only these were still the good old days.

  18. David Avatar
    David

    WEEKES STILL WAITING ON JONES – Nearly a week after a “very cordial” meeting to resolve a dispute surrounding a 14-year-old student, the matter remains hanging with no signs of a resolution. Elicia Weekes, the mother of the pupil at the centre of the wrapper controversy at Springer Memorial School, along with her lawyer Steve Straughn and child advocate Shelley Ross met last Friday with Minister of Education Ronald Jones on the future the child’s education.Following two hours of talks Straughn reported that they had agreed to work in the girl’s best interest and structures were being put in place to ensure her return to school. “I am upset but all I can do now is wait. Of course I am not pleased at all. How can any mother be pleased at all? Remember the Minister is not on the island, so for right now it is a matter of waiting,” Weekes said. There have been suggestions of a number of schools in St Michael to which the fourth form student could be transferred. However, Weekes has denied that any such proposals were made during last Friday’s meeting. “There has been lots of comments about transferring her to a school other than Ellerslie. We would accept The St Michael School or even Foundation, to which the answer was that she did not get the marks for either school in the Common Entrance,” Ross stated in the post. “However Springer Memorial transferred a child to Queen’s College who did not get the marks for QC – but ask the question – who is her father?”

  19. ac Avatar
    ac

    What d f..k is she talking about the minister not being on the island the mother is a screw ball.
    The MOE needs to stop allowing the mother and her devious group of advisers to take control and execute an order forthwith for the child to be placed in a school as determined by her scholastic ability within 24hrs or else face legal consequences.
    The mother is totally out of her mind using stalling tactics when in fact asking for more than is required for her child to be placed back in school.
    This kind of grandstanding and up in the face objections to rail road the system cannot and should not happen as the long term fall out can be negative in addressing similiar problems .
    Lady i say take a hike and home school your child..enough if your bull s..hite

  20. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ Gabriel
    LOL
    Perhaps Parris made the student pick up trash and paint the school to ensure that the Springer girl’s mother would not even consider Cawmere as an option….

    …Is that not proactive Principalship?

  21. de Ingrunt Word Avatar
    de Ingrunt Word

    @Sunshine Sunny Shine February 19 at 4:57 AM …when will we accept that “the good old days” is a reflective figment of our imagination. Every period is ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

    How can we expect ‘a good cut ass’ from a parent who has been described as ill-disciplined, rowdy and worst. In modern speak ‘a cut-ass’ is very stern discipline of the non-physical form . This parent does not do any form of discipline; she encourages her child in her disobedience.

    Back in our youth this parent would surely still have been one of the firegalash types that kept the village folks on their toes…

    They were far fewer in numbers den because of societal pressure. Just as they are far greater in number now because of societal ‘acquiescence’.

    Don’t the reality shows say that diva behaviour is to be proclaimed with vigor and the political class behavior says so too. And definitely the millions on social media say its mandatory to get your groove on and express yourself.

    For us back in the day where the mantra ‘that a child was to be seen and not heard’ had a sting to it, wouldn’t this freedom to express ourselves (respectfully, of course) been some good times too!!!

    And @Artax, …such artful prose. But bro, ‘bubbies’ is considerably low brow compared to ‘cleft of Venus’. But sweet phrasing, nonetheless. LOLLL.

  22. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Bushie
    You mek a fust class pint dey yuh.lol

  23. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @ac February 19, 2016 at 7:26 AM “Lady i say take a hike and home school your child.”

    I doubt that the mother is capable of home schooling her child to a standard which would permit the young woman entry to any university anywhere in the world.

    I doubt that her lawyer is capable of providing the young woman with an education which would permit the young woman entry to UWI, legal education program.

    I doubt that the mother’s so-called education/human rights consultant is capable of home schooling the young woman.

    Most of us are incapable of home schooling our children.

    I know that I could not,

    I am grateful for my teachers and for my children’s teachers.

  24. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @David February 19, 2016 at 6:26 AM “Elicia Weekes, the mother of the pupil at the centre of the wrapper controversy at Springer Memorial School, along with her lawyer Steve Straughn and child advocate Shelley Ross met last Friday with Minister of Education Ronald Jones.”

    4 people multiplied by 2 hours equals 8 hours (4 people x 2 hours = 8 hours)

    A whole bloody day’s work.
    A waste of time.

    The Minister had no business meeting with the mother and her lawyer and her adviser anyhow.

    Stupseee!!!!

    Damn silliness.

  25. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @David February 19, 2016 at 6:26 AM “However Springer Memorial transferred a child to Queen’s College who did not get the marks for QC – but ask the question – who is her father?”

    David you did not ask me but I would suggest that the father (if he is indeed the father) is a damn jackass or a poor great poppit.

    Lolll!!!

  26. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Combermere Vs Springer Memorial
    There us a hell of a difference between a Direct Order and a Request.

  27. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Colonel Buggy,
    Do senior officers in the “disciplined forces” make requests of their charges, or do they give orders? …”Attention!!” is that an order or a request? You talk bare bull, in an attempt to get away from the fact that this mother has deliberately; because of her own stupidity and indiscipline, as well as a disrespect for authority, transmuted this to her daughter which will affect her for the balance of there life. The teacher is not to blame.

  28. ac Avatar
    ac

    Really now that i have read Artax mouthings correlating a personnel right attributed to an indivudual taste attire ..i am flabergasted that this masquerader would go to such an extreme of connecting both issues bearing in mind the differing facts of both issues
    The principle although have a right to manage his school does not have a right to enforce roadblocks that might in fact deny parents from having permission to pick up their children after school.
    On the other issue wherby the child is under the guidance of educational setting six days a week.it is not and if or a but but standard rules of conduct and guidlines that are necessary providing a sembelance of order by which each child must adhere and if broken is subjected to discipline
    Every child and parent knows of those rules of conduct and there is no excuse for not complying under the misguided belief that the child has rights

  29. The Gazer Avatar
    The Gazer

    I must beg your indulgence.

    There are a few topics that do not catch my interest and so the most I do is take a poke at the Zoe-ster. Then there are those that I simply do not understand. I tried my best to get my head around this topic but I cannot. To me it is as if someone did not pick up a piece of paper and then there was a great explosion.

    Linking the two events is what has me puzzled.

    I do not know what I would do if my son was in such a situation, I think I would side with him, no matter what decision he made; but I cannot for the life of me imagine such a situation going beyond the teacher/principal and I. And it is the escalation of this matter to the MOE that has me puzzled.

    What am I missing? I do not understand either side of this kerfuffle. Is this a tempest in a teapot?

    Help me understand.

  30. The Gazer Avatar
    The Gazer

    i can only conclude that one of the parties exercised the “nuclear option” (whatever that is) instead of trying to “work it out”

  31. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ The Gazer
    Don’t hurt your head trying to understand this issue…. is is just one of the things that brass bowls do when they are faced with REAL issues like Lowe continuing to talk shiite bout CAHILL; like NO ONE SAYING a shiite about CLICO; like the Shiite-Hound mashing up the Sugar Industry in his bid to get his hands on a finder’s fee; and like Froon continuing in a dazed stupor while Barbados goes over the cliff…

    Brass Bowls deal with such matters of National Life and Death by focusing on an unemployed, single mother doing what many other adults with failed lives do best….
    ..mess up their children’s lives too.

    The next thing that will happen is that Peter Wickham will write an article complaining about why same sex partners are not allowed to get pregnant…. and we will delve into THAT topic…

  32. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Alvin Cummins February 20, 2016 at 7:57 AM
    There is more to the discipline forces than the clockwork Left Right Left Right on the parade square.
    A General will order his troops to engage the enemy on the battle front. They may not like it but they have to obey.
    Then along comes the Padre, talking to the same troops., “God is on our side,my brothers,” and he requests them to go forward in the Father, the son and the holy Gho….”
    Before he finishes his spiel the troops are already advancing.

  33. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    What I find amusing in same sex relationships is that one is the male and the other is the female.It is an aberration of nature therefore such peeps are sometimes defined as freaks of nature.How can a woman be a man and how can a man be a woman.Both species are biologically and skeletally made for procreation,nothing more,nothing less,never mind all the crap Zoe and GP write on BU.Neither 2 men,aka bullers nor 2 women aka wickers or lesbians procreate.Never,never,never.Neither an acting man nor an acting woman is for real outside of MGM, 20th Century Fox,J Arthur Rank or Pinewood.

  34. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Gabriel February 20, 2016 at 5:12 PM “Both species are biologically and skeletally made for procreation,”

    Dear Gabriel: Did you drop out of thr iology class in third form at Cawmere?

    Where did you learn that men and women are two different species?

    Let me tell you today for the first and the last time.

    Men and women belong to the SAME species.

  35. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @The Gazer February 20, 2016 at 11:34 AM “I do not know what I would do if my son was in such a situation, I think I would side with him, no matter what decision he made.”

    Dear Gazer: Sometimes our children because of inexperience and immaturity make bad decisions. It is our DUTY as parents to correct them, not to “side with them” just because they are our children.

    Siding with a decision made by an inexperienced, immature child makes you an irresponsible parent.

    A BAD parent.

  36. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Bush Tea February 20, 2016 at 11:53 AM “complaining about why same sex partners are not allowed to get pregnant…. and we will delve into THAT topic…

    I don’t know where you bi hiding Bushie, but same sex partners are not forbidden pregnancy. In fact it has become fairly commonplace for same sex female partners to become pregnant (sometime multiple times). They do it the same way that divergent sex partners who are infertile do it.

  37. The Gazer Avatar
    The Gazer

    @Simple Simon
    Let us assume that only one of the two decisions (pick-up/not pick-up) is wrong and therefore I can be at most half-of-a-bad-parent.

    Do you think that the instruction to pick up the wrapper would be given to every school child in Barbados? Do you think that if Mr Big’s Son refused to pick upo the wrapper, he would suffer the same consequence?

    It would be good to know what made that child react in that manner. Did she feel she was being picked on? Did she see others pass by, and then she was asked to pick the wrapper?

    If my son failed to pick-up the wrapper (and was not the person who dropped it) then he would have my support. I sent him to school with the hope that he learns something in class and not to pick up garbage deposited by others. Schools have custodians who are responsible for keeping the schools and the school grounds clean.

    If his failure to pick up after others will send him on a course of criminality/to hell then I have failed him in some way.

    I am one who believes that ‘an inexperienced an immature child’ will often make the correct decision. In fact, I will go farther and state that the preponderance of their decisions will be correct,

  38. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    LOL @ The Gazer
    Give it up boss…. you have no point …
    Simple would maul yuh hear…? ha ha ha

    @ Simple
    I don’t know where you bi(n) hiding Bushie, but same sex partners are not forbidden pregnancy
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Looka … Bushie is beginning to miss the days when we cussed each other yuh… 🙂
    Bushie did NOT say that “same sex partners are forbidden pregnancy….”
    What the bushman said was that your boy Peter W. would complain thusly… have you ever heard him complain of anything that made sense yet…?

  39. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    A German couple has taken the German government to court over their rights to shag and be shagged by animals.
    Give in to one lot ,and the rest will demand their pound of flesh.

  40. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    The German court has ruled quite sensibly that animals have a right not to be sexually assaulted by human beings.

  41. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    Singapore leads the way….

    http://bbc.in/1WMEE4M

  42. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    I think that we have failed to tell our children what was.

    We have turned our children into a bunch of poor great, nasty, entitled “poppets.”

    In my rural elementary school there was one cleaning lady, Gwen for about 135 students. Every morning a teacher or two and Gwen and a few children mixed the milk powder to serve at morning break, and set out and covered the cups of milk with a net to protect the food from flies (no screens in those days). We considered it an honor to be asked to help. We were aged 4 to 9, but we learned that we must wash our hands, the pails, cups, whisks and clean the counters with soap and water before preparing food. This was done during morning assembly, so no teaching academic learning time was lost. Those tasked with these duties were rotated so that nobody always missed morning assembly, and everybody learned good food preparation practices. Some children deliberately got to school very early so that they could help Gwen with opening windows and doors etc.

    So what is happening in Singapore and Japan is not new. We used to do the same. I am not sure why we stopped (if we have stopped at all schools).

  43. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @SS

    We were aged 4 to 9, but we learned that we must wash our hands, the pails, cups, whisks and clean the counters with soap and water before preparing food
    ++++++
    Not only washed our hands. but with “EC” water

    BTW I just read that a student at St. Leonards was suspended for cussing a teacher ah wonder what de teacher did to him (cue the sarcasm). His mother should turn up and wreak havoc after all the little darling has freedom of speech and he was just exercising it………..

  44. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    Oh yes. I almost forgot about the EC. And the wooden wash stands, with large white enamelled basins, always with blue rims.

    I have gotten sick from restaurant food, including food from a big name, many starred international brand name hotel outside of Barbados. No name, no lock up. But I never get sick from home prepared food. Those non-book lessons learned from Gwen and my elementary school teachers have saved my health, and maybe even my life.

    There is so much to be learned at school, that does not involve chalk and classroom talk.

    It is a great pity that we have neglected to teach our children these things.

  45. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    If you cuss the teacher (or anybody else) while your head is hot (and we all get hot headed from time to time) as soon as you cool down, apologise.

    Cheeze.

    Life can be so simple, and yet people insist in complicating-up things.

  46. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    FACT CHECK.

    Singapore is following the lead of Japan.

  47. ac Avatar
    ac

    Ten weeks and counting.. How much more would govt allow this mother to sabotage her child future with her childish pranks
    It was said by media that maybe today some kind of resolution would have occurred but so far the lights are still dimmed and no one dares enter or come out
    Sadly it is the child still sitting and waiting in the dark

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