Student’s “agitated state” led to principal being grazed with a clothespin
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A grade eight student at LW Young Junior High School yesterday took a clothespin, balled it into her fist, and swung at the school’s principal, grazing her forehead and prompting police to the school.
The principal, who spotted the girl in an “agitated state and behaving inappropriately” on the campus, sought to lead her away from the crowd, according to Director of Education Marcellus Taylor.
As the educator did so, she took the student’s hand into her own, but the student pulled away and began shouting at the principal, eventually swinging at her with the clothespin.
“It grazed the principals forehead, so the principal she did get hit, but she is okay,” the director said.
“And of course, they were able to take the student to the office and calm her down.
“They called her parents, called the police and they have the matter in hand.”
The principal did not require medical attention.
“I want to make this clear, clearly the student crossed the line and that is completely unacceptable behavior,” Taylor said.
“And so, of course, you know, the student will have to face the consequences of that that particular action.
“But I just want to, you know, some of the things floating around are not true.”
The incident was one of two altercations at the school yesterday.
As students were let out at the end of the day, an LW Young student was struck by a rock thrown by a student from another school and required medical attention.
The student was conscious when he was transported to hospital, according to Taylor, who said there was “not much in the way of blood”.
He said the student from the other school was identified and authorities were intervening.
Asked about increased violence of school campuses, which recently returned to face to face learning after nearly two years of virtual school, Taylor said: “Yes, I think we’re always concerned when there is indiscipline and poor behavior on the part of students or anyone on school campuses.
“And no doubt, you know, that’s one of the one of the tradeoffs you make when you have students on campus.
“You’re going to some element of misbehaving.
“We saw more of it when students immediately came back and we took some actions to try to and control it a little bit more.
“You might recall even the police took a particular action by coming on the campus and we had police officers dispatched to school campuses.
The director said instances of indiscipline were on the decline, though he could conclusively attribute the cause to police on campuses.
“But we’re quite pleased with the way we’re working with the police.
“What we want to do is we want to continue to find ways to cause students to manage themselves better and for parents to also encourage their students to behave when they come to school.
“Some of this stuff is spilling onto the school campuses from the greater community and so as Bahamians in general we need to be concerned about, you know, violence within our society and try to do our best to curb it as much as we could.”
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