De­spite be­ing cau­tioned by the po­lice, par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing the Clax­ton Bay Ju­nior An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School stood their ground dur­ing a protest yes­ter­day.

Ac­com­pa­nied by their chil­dren, the par­ents armed with plac­ards protest­ed in front of the cen­tu­ry-old school build­ing at Cedar Hill Road in Clax­ton Bay. The road was al­so blocked with de­bris.

The par­ents ex­plained that in 2019 the school was shut down due to in­fra­struc­tur­al de­fects. The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency had rec­om­mend­ed that the build­ing be de­mol­ished. As a re­sult, the stu­dents were re­lo­cat­ed and are cur­rent­ly housed at the Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School, but they were promised a new school in Clax­ton Bay.

The par­ents said the gov­ern­ment had arranged a shut­tle ser­vice for the chil­dren from the old school to Mara­bel­la. How­ev­er, the par­ents com­plained since school re­opened there has been no shut­tle ser­vice.

Par­ent Shan­ta Mo­han com­plained, “We have no trans­porta­tion here be­cause the Gov­ern­ment hasn’t paid the first shut­tle ser­vice and now they come and haven’t paid the sec­ond shut­tle ser­vice, so we have no shut­tle ser­vice to take our chil­dren to school in Mar­bel­la. It have par­ents who don’t have ve­hi­cles, how we chil­dren reach­ing there? Our chil­dren have been stay­ing back for years in one stan­dard all the time.”

Apart from that is­sue, Mo­han said they al­so have oth­er prob­lems with the school in Mara­bel­la.

“They go­ing to school Mara­bel­la and when rain falls, Mara­bel­la in a di­lap­i­dat­ed state too. The chil­dren have no fan, when rain falls they flood­ed out. They can­not even go to school,” she com­plained.

An­oth­er par­ent, Stacey Gibbs, called for the school build­ing in Clax­ton Bay to be re­paired.

“This is Clax­ton Bay Ju­nior An­gli­can, it not sup­posed to be in Mara­bel­la, not To­co, nowhere else but Clax­ton Bay and we would like to get our school fix im­me­di­ate­ly.”

Par­ent Ge­nine Prov­i­dence added, “We fed-up and frus­trat­ed. The chil­dren them need their ed­u­ca­tion.”

Fa­ther Stephon Guis­seppe ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment has not re­paired the school.

In­stead of the po­lice rep­ri­mand­ing par­ents about block­ing the road, Guis­seppe lament­ed, “In­ves­ti­gate where the funds gone for this. Don’t talk about the CCTV cam­era see who block the road, al­lyuh study­ing the wrong things. This is what we want to know, we want this fixed, we want this ad­dressed. “

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly told Guardian Me­dia the school is card­ed for re­pairs.