HILARY HOSIA
An assault of a North Delap Elementary School first grade student late last week highlighted a series of assaults of students in Majuro public schools in recent weeks.
Recent previous incidents had not received public scrutiny, including a Long Island Elementary snafu when a student was held back in school after being assaulted, a student who was brought to the hospital emergency room after students rubbed spicy residue in his eyes, and the child whose blood still stains the principal’s office at NDES.
This time, the mother of NDES first grade student Kenye Yens is fighting the entire Public School System demanding answers and to prevent future incidents. Kenye said Tuesday she is particularly angry by the fact that no one from the school contacted her about the situation with her son.
Kenye took to social media after she said the school failed to take appropriate measures for the safety of her seven-year old son, who was bleeding from the head after being chased and pushed by another student.
Instead of taking the child to the hospital, NDES Principal Ruben Ruben drove the the seven-year-old home where he met up with the child’s aunty and uncle and asked if they could take the boy to the hospital before driving off.
The Journal spoke with Ruben Tuesday. From the interview, the Journal learned there have been numerous accidents involving students in NDES that the principal and staff self-assessed without seeking medical help, including a case where a child sustained a broken arm from playing on campus.
The principal says he couldn’t contact the parents of the seven-year-old injured late last week because searching for contact numbers is time consuming and that numbers are buried in files. As to why he did not take the child to the hospital, which is next door to NDES, he said he had past experiences where children refuse to go to the hospital because students don’t trust school staff.
“I was at work when my mother in law called about my son,” Kenye told the Journal this week. “Now my kid is too scared to go back to school.”
At the hospital Tuesday, seven-year old Rammel Aisek had his bandage changed by nurse Tora Langling for the third time since the incident late last week. “He has been complaining about headaches and has been shivering at night,” the mother told the nurse.
While the homeroom teacher and the school principal are denying how Kenye tells her story on social media, both offered their sympathy to the child.
School officials claim that the boy threw a rock at another student who chased the boy and pushed him as she caught up with him by the doorway, resulting in his hitting his head on the door frame.
Public School System headquarters was working with N. Delap Elementary School administration “on a more precise report as the information shared on social media does not convey the true story,” PSS Commissioner Kanchi Hosia told the Journal earlier this week.
He said PSS has a Child Protection Policy that schools are following to safeguard children’s well being. The Child Protection Policy notes that school administrations are required to report assaultive incidents to the PSS Child Protection Officer.
Read more about this in the March 22, 2019 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.