Rhon­dor Dowlat

The im­pend­ing clo­sure of Atwell's Ed­u­ca­tion­al In­sti­tute in Tacarigua is be­ing de­scribed as a "death in the fam­i­ly."

This was the phrase used yes­ter­day by a par­ent of a child who cur­rent­ly at­tends the school.

The par­ent, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said she be­came dis­heart­ened on hear­ing the news. About 250 stu­dents will be dis­placed up­on the school's clo­sure. Some of the stu­dents are to va­cate by Ju­ly and oth­ers next year.

She said that the news came as a shock and was up­set about the man­ner in which she and oth­er par­ents were in­formed by the school's prin­ci­pal, He­len Atwell-Koo.

"It is ut­ter­ly dis­re­spect­ful for the prin­ci­pal not even to talk to us (par­ents). Most of us here do not even know what she looks like, much less her name and the on­ly way we got to know her name was through a let­ter that was sent to us in­form­ing us that the school is go­ing to close down next year," an­oth­er par­ent said.

An­oth­er par­ent, iden­ti­fied as Rod­ney Metivi­er, of Ari­ma, said he was an­gry at the school's clo­sure.

"For me it is one of the best pri­vate schools in the East. No on­ly that, it is even priced rea­son­ably com­pared to oth­er pri­vate schools. It is close to home, no traf­fic to come here to drop my daugh­ter off," Metivi­er said.

He along with oth­er par­ents have no oth­er choice but to find an­oth­er pri­vate school to send their chil­dren.

"I, my­self, came from a pri­vate school back­ground and for me it is the best way. The teach­ers fo­cus on the kids more."

A let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 27, signed by the school's vice prin­ci­pal, on­ly iden­ti­fied as Ms A Koo, stat­ed that He­len Atwell-Koo will be re­tir­ing as prin­ci­pal and added that a de­ci­sion had been tak­en by the ad­min­is­tra­tion to cease op­er­a­tions at the school by 2018.

Koo stat­ed that on­ly the present Prep 4 and Prep 5 class­es will be with the school un­til its clo­sure and stu­dents from Stage 1 to Prep 3 will not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue their ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence at Atwell's af­ter Ju­ly.

As part of its com­mit­ment, Koo in­formed the par­ents that they would be will­ing to of­fer guid­ance and as­sis­tance to help stu­dents present­ly in the Prep 3 class (2016-2017) find place­ment in oth­er sim­i­lar pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions.

Sub­se­quent to par­ents re­ceiv­ing the let­ter, some of them de­cid­ed to start an on­line pe­ti­tion to let the ad­min­is­tra­tion know how they feel about the de­ci­sion. The school's prin­ci­pal de­clined to make any com­ment to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day. She sent a mes­sage with the school's se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer say­ing that she was not al­lowed to speak to the me­dia.