By NALINEE SEELAL Thursday, October 8 2009

PRESIDENT of the National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA) Zina Ramatali yesterday called for a full scale investigation into the strip search of students at St Joseph College, St Joseph on Tuesday afternoon by police officers.

Ramatali said the situation could have been avoided if the school’s principal Kester De Verteuil conducted his own investigation into a student’s claim that money was missing from her schoolbag rather than telling the student to go to the police and report the matter.

“The principal’s duty is to protect the children under his supervision and instead of doing that he allowed these students to be humiliated and we do not only want a probe from the Ministry of Education but also a report from the police to ascertain if they have the right to strip search students,” Ramatali said.

Yesterday, angry parents of the 32 Form Five students who were subjected to the search by police met with De Verteuil and demanded a full report on the matter. The principal later agreed to have a meeting with parents and police to further discuss the matter. Newsday understands that a counsellor spoke with the affected students at the school yesterday.

“At all times, the police officers appeared to have acted in a professional manner while maintaining the privacy of each student. The college remains actively aware that in order to protect each of its students from the effect of crime and instil the discipline necessary to mould them into right thinking adults, it is necessary to have the participation of all stakeholders, including parents and the police,” De Verteuil said in a release sent to Newsday yesterday. One of the parents who visited Principal De Verteuil yesterday said she intend to seek legal redress and added that her daughter remains traumatised. She said, “I am not leaving the matter to die a natural death because my daughter is no criminal and she should have been protected from that type of action which she encountered on Tuesday,” said the distressed woman.

At about 2.30 pm on Tuesday, a Sargeant accompanied by a male and female police constable went to the school in company with a female student who claimed $1,400 was missing from her school bag.

The officers searched the bags of 32 Form Five students and then took the male students to one room and female students to another room, where they were ordered to strip down to their underwear and be subjected to a body search. The money was not found.

The student who claimed her money was missing and half of the 32 students who were searched, stayed away from school yesterday.