Teach­ers and stu­dents of the St Do­minic’s RC Pri­ma­ry School in Pe­nal are cur­rent­ly locked out of Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre where the school op­er­ates, as par­ents protest for a new school.

From as ear­ly as 6 am a group of par­ents in­clud­ing Par­ent Teacher Coun­cil (PTC) mem­bers be­gan gath­er­ing in front the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre de­mand­ing that the gate re­mained closed.

Hold­ing up plac­ards, which were al­so stuck on the closed gate, they turned away stu­dents and teach­ers, and ser­vice providers.

The prin­ci­pal and teach­ing staff re­mained in their ve­hi­cles parked along the road in front the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, un­able to en­ter the com­pound.

Sev­er­al years ago the school build­ing was dam­aged fol­low­ing an earth­quake and the chil­dren were re­lo­cat­ed to the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre and parish hall in 2017.

How­ev­er, the build­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Com­munuty Cen­tre, have been plagued with sev­er­al prob­lems over the years in­clud­ing faulty elec­tri­cal and plumb­ing, flood­ed toi­lets. “Enough is enough,” charged PTC pres­i­dent Sharon Bap­tiste. She said they in­tend to shut­down the school un­til their con­cerns are ad­dressed and they get safe and prop­er ac­com­mo­da­tions for their chil­dren.

She said re­pairs to the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre was sup­posed to have been done over the Christ­mas va­ca­tion, but noth­ing was done.

The In­fants de­part­ment com­pris­ing 66 stu­dents is at the parish hall while the oth­er stu­dents num­ber­ing 170 is at the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.