On May 27th, 16-year-old Belmopan Comprehensive High School Student Keisha Peyrefitte was told that she was the high school's valedictorian. It's the greatest academic honour that any young adult can receive and what made it better for Keisha was that she was the first Camalote girl to earn the distinction. She diligently prepared for two weeks but the dream all fell apart yesterday when she was told that a mistake had been made: she was not the valedictorian. We today found Keisha at her home in Camalote Village where she expressed outrage, disappointment and the feeling that she had been discriminated against. Alfonso Noble Reports from Camalote.
Keisha Peyrefitte, Stripped
"I feel angry right now. Yesterday I was a little disappointed and shocked but today I'm angry, really angry, and hurt."
16-year-old Keisha Peyrefitte is angry and hurt and understandably so because she has been stripped of one of the highest honors a young students gets while going through formal education. Aisha Peyrefitte says that two weeks ago she got the news that she would be this year's valedictorian at the commencement exercises of Belmopan Comprehensive High. But yesterday the laurel was wrenched from her head and her pride was shattered.
Keisha Peyrefitte,
"Yesterday at the last dress practice, dress rehearsal, the principal told a homeroom teacher that he needed to see me in his office. So I went into his office and he told me that I was no longer the valedictorian, the valedictorian was indeed a Chinese girl. According to Mr. Salazar and his staff, they said that it was a miscalculation from the Chinese girl's grades from first form. She got about 79 and when they checked it over she got a 91. Personally I think it is a payoff or some type of conspiracy because how come two weeks after they've checked it again, and two days before graduation, they will come and tell me that I am not the valedictorian and it was a Chinese girl. That's not right."
And today as she is flanked by her family who stand beside her to support her in this very trying time both Aisha and her mother Mary Hill are convinced that the color of her skin and where she comes from has everything to do with her dethronement.
Keisha Peyrefitte,
"Some teachers from the beginning didn't want me to get the valedictorian address so they lobbied and they checked over and over until yesterday and they said that it was a mistake and they presented it to Mr. Salazar who came and just made it public that I wasn't the valedictorian again."
Alfonso Noble,
Is it possible that they just made this up?
Keisha Peyrefitte,
"Yes I think it is quite possible. I think personally its because I am black and from a rural community and they probably think the rural gial will just roll over and won't say anything but is wrong because I got all my support back here."
Mary Hill, Mother
"Words can't explain; you'd have to be in my shoes to really feel what it feels like. This madness must stop because you know how devastated my child is right now: she doesn't want to speak to nobody and she doesn't even want to graduate, something she has been dreaming of and now you have swiped everything from under her and I won't accept this. I personally would like to do it, would like to know who did it and how much money they are getting. If my daughter wasn't the valedictorian then they should have found that out long before now, not when tomorrow is graduation. I do believe in my heart that she works very hard and she deserves it."
And tomorrow at 6:30 Aisha says, despite what's done to her she will walk up the graduation isle with all the pomp and circumstance and she will deliver her address even if it's just the salutatory one.
Keisha Peyrefitte,
"I think tomorrow I will indeed give the salutatory address and I'm going to give them an address that they will never forget."
Graduation ceremonies for Belmopan Comprehensive High will take place tomorrow evening. Family members say they plan to picket the school tomorrow.
