Teenager denied admission to school after alleged suicide attempt

Westville Girls’ High School will not allow a 13-year-old girl back on their premises without reassurance that she “will not be a risk to herself and that the safety of other learners and staff will not be compromised or placed at risk” following her alleged attempt to jump out of her classroom window during an exam, TimeSelect reported.

The 13-year-old is currently at home after she revealed that she had been addicted to drugs due to rape trauma.

The teenager’s father had requested an investigation from the provincial education department into the matter of the school demanding a letter from a psychiatrist to state that she is in a healthy mental condition.

“The school’s management told me that until the letter is received, my daughter could be taught in isolation,” the father told TimeSelect.

It is reported that the girl’s psychiatrist refused to write the letter as the school should have not excluded the teenager to start with, even though her doctors had written a letter to the school to confirm that she was receiving treatment.

During the second term of 2019, the teenager allegedly starting showing signs of troublesome behaviour leading to her admission into a hospital in June for “observation and prescribed depression and anxiety medication” after she was taken to a psychiatrist.

The teenager started staying at home on the request of her school after she became suicidal in the third term.

“My daughter told me that she had been introduced to drugs by a group of grade 10 girls in the second term thus explaining her behaviour back then,” said the father.

She also disclosed to her parents that she had been raped by a friend’s father in 2016 and a case of rape had been opened at the Westville police station.

The teenager was taken to the department of social development for her drug addiction after she started having counselling sessions with a psychiatrist at the Jes Foord Foundation for rape survivors.

She also went for sessions at the South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

The school had allegedly threatened to take disciplinary action if the drug allegations proved to be true and denied the teenager a chance to return to repeat grade 8 in 2020.

“The school is unable to comment on this matter as it is being investigated by the education department,” said the school’s governing body chairperson Steven Tait.

The school’s principal, Russell Untiedt, allegedly sent a letter to the teenager’s father informing him that she can only be back on their premises with reassurance that she “will not be a risk to herself and that the safety of other learners and staff will not be compromised or placed at risk”.

Muzi Mahlambi, KwaZulu-Natal education department’s spokesperson said the department was investigating the drugs allegation and that they were searching for ways to solve the teenager’s case.

He said that while the investigation was being conducted, the department would facilitate the girl’s “admission to a school”.

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