In­nis Fran­cis

Sev­er­al par­ents were forced to re­move their chil­dren from the com­pound of Princes Town Ro­man Catholic Pri­ma­ry School. The in­fant sec­tion of the school was de­stroyed by fires on Septe­ber 26.

Par­ents claimed au­thor­i­ties “rushed” to re­open the school. .

Scores of pupils in­clud­ing a three-month preg­nant OJT teacher, ex­pe­ri­enced res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems due to heavy dust, bleach and fire residue af­ter the forced clo­sure.

The teacher had to be tak­en away from the com­pound by am­bu­lance.

Tri­cia Br­ere­ton, a par­ent of three pupils, said the con­di­tions was so de­plorable that pupils and teach­ers wore gloves to wipe off the sur­faces be­fore school be­gan.

Br­ere­ton said: “We were in­formed in a whats app mes­sage that school will re­sume to­day (yes­ter­day). When I came I re­alised that it was not safe for chil­dren to be on the com­pound. It was al­ready down for two months, will one or two weeks make a dif­fer­ence? They should have let the chil­dren come out from next se­mes­ter and not bring them in these de­plorable con­di­tions. You have chil­dren here with buck­ets clean­ing and scrub­bing. And it have no wa­ter on the com­pound.”

She said when she en­quired, a school su­per­vi­sor who vis­it­ed the schoo,l said it was manda­to­ry that the school be opened.

Br­ere­ton con­tin­ued: “In the past here was a polling sta­tion. I don’t know if it still is, but this is polotricks. We have 25 chil­dren sit­ting on six bench­es in the in­fant de­part­ment. But we are not bring­ing our chil­dren back out on till this prob­lem is re­solved.”

Fire de­stroyed the com­put­er room in the base­ment and class­rooms on the first floor. No in­juries were record­ed and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in­di­cat­ed then, that the school would re­main closed to al­low for “a thor­ough in­spec­tion, clean­ing, and san­i­ta­tion of the area.”

An­oth­er par­ent, who took her sec­ond year pupil home, said her son suf­fers with si­nus prob­lems and itchy eye when he is in a dust prone area. She said the class­room was dusty and heavy smoke residue cov­ered the bench­es and floors of the class­room.

Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed spoke to the CEO of the Catholic Board of man­age­ment Sharon Man­groo who con­firmed the ap­proved open­ing of the school by way of whats app. She said she be­lieved that par­ents were over re­act­ing to the sit­u­a­tion and 175 pupils turned out to school.

“It has noth­ing to do with it be­ing used as a polling sta­tion. They could use any­where, but the Min­istry does not want any child miss­ing school and the aim is to have as much school as pos­si­ble. We are sure it was safe to open school. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said it is al­so un­law­ful to keep a child home with­out good rea­son, I hope these par­ents are mak­ing al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments for the ed­u­ca­tion of their chil­dren,” Man­groo said.

Man­groo as­sured that the prin­ci­pal had been in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the board and in­di­cat­ed that the school had been pow­er washed on Sun­day.

She said, “There might have been mi­nor de­tails, but the school com­pound was pow­er washed. It might have had lit­tle dust. There wasn’t any wa­ter and by 10 am the school had wa­ter (yes­ter­day). They were al­so wait­ing to get the go ahead from T&TEC with a cer­tifi­cate to as­sure it was ready.”