Par­ents of pupils at­tend­ing the San Fer­nan­do Methodist Pri­ma­ry School are con­cerned about their chil­dren’s safe­ty.

They com­plained that the chil­dren have to re­main on the pave­ment in front the school un­til tem­per­a­ture checks are tak­en for them to en­ter the com­pound at 8 am or lat­er.

The par­ents have re­quest­ed anonymi­ty for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

The moth­er of a sev­en-year-old child com­plained: “The on­ly time they let them in is if rain is driz­zling and yet still the driz­zle have to be falling hard enough. From First Year straight up to Stan­dard Five on that pave­ment. The school is on a steep hill and the big­ger boys are push­ing and play­ing. These chil­dren could fall down. They could end up down the hill. A car could come around the cor­ner and kill them. It is not right.”

She said some par­ents can­not wait with their chil­dren be­cause they have to go to work.

“Van dri­vers aren’t wait­ing be­cause they have oth­er chil­dren to pick up. The oth­er schools aren’t do­ing this,” she claimed.

She re­called that when the is­sue was raised dur­ing a Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) meet­ing, in which a so­cial work­er from the min­istry was present, par­ents were told that the teach­ers were not babysit­ters and that was not part of the se­cu­ri­ty’s job.

The moth­er, how­ev­er, said teach­ers have chil­dren at­tend­ing the school and their chil­dren are al­lowed on the com­pound with them.

She added: “I am ask­ing for my child, every­body, else child to be safe, and to be on the com­pound, even if it is at 7.30.”

She said be­fore COVID, the chil­dren were al­lowed on the com­pound but not in­to the class­rooms un­til the bell rang.

Oth­er par­ents shared sim­i­lar com­plaints. “This is very frus­trat­ing. I don’t see why the chil­dren can’t go in­to the com­pound, test their tem­per­a­ture and let them wait in­side the com­pound, at least it will be more se­cure than on the road where any­thing could hap­pen to them. It’s not enough to say that teach­ers are not babysit­ters, what about the chil­dren’s safe­ty,” an­oth­er par­ent ar­gued.

An­oth­er is­sue, they said, is that there is a lack of toi­let pa­per, soap and oth­er sup­plies at the school.

In ad­di­tion, a par­ent com­plained the bench is too small to ac­com­mo­date her child who is bare­ly able to write prop­er­ly due to the cramped space.

“He is kneel­ing down to the write on the desk,” she com­plained. She said the school told her that they made a re­quest to the min­istry for fur­ni­ture.

Min­is­ter: Its a mat­ter for the prin­ci­pal

When con­tact­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said this sit­u­a­tion has to be han­dled by the school prin­ci­pal.

The min­is­ter said: “The time stu­dents are al­lowed to en­ter the school com­pound on morn­ings is, and must be man­aged by Prin­ci­pals at the school lev­el. This would be im­pact­ed by the avail­abil­i­ty of staff and teach­ers on the com­pound and the need to as­sure the safe­ty of stu­dents—not sim­ply for COVID pro­to­cols, but their gen­er­al safe­ty. The time staff would be avail­able at schools on morn­ings would vary from school to school; hence, this is a mat­ter for the school prin­ci­pal,” she said via What­sApp Mes­sen­ger.

Par­ents must work to­geth­er says PTA

PTA pres­i­dent Dar­ren Med­ford said par­ents need­ed to work to­geth­er with the prin­ci­pal and teach­ers to find a so­lu­tion.

“I un­der­stand the plight of the par­ents but the par­ents need to un­der­stand as well that school and by ex­ten­sion the prin­ci­pal is on­ly re­spon­si­ble for their chil­dren on­ly when school is in du­ra­tion.”

Med­ford, a fa­ther of three, said due to the min­istry’s COVID pol­i­cy, every child’s tem­per­a­ture must be tak­en be­fore they en­ter the school and they must al­so sani­tise.

“It is not like be­fore when the chil­dren would just drop off from the ve­hi­cles and just walk in­to the school, now it have to have peo­ple on the com­pound to treat with that.”

He added that it was un­fair to ask the prin­ci­pal and teach­ers to come to school “way in ad­vance” to ac­com­mo­date par­ents be­cause they al­so have fam­i­lies and chil­dren to take to school.

“The min­istry did not hire any body else to do that so the prin­ci­pal could on­ly work with what she has and ask the teach­ers to ac­com­mo­date them when they ar­rive for du­ty which would be clos­er to when they have to start work be­cause they have to drop their kids as well,” he said.

While par­ents al­so have to work, he added, ”Par­ents need to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and try to put things in place.”

Sug­gest­ing that par­ents work with the prin­ci­pal, Med­ford said: “Sit­ting down and just quar­relling and point­ing fin­gers is not go­ing to as­sist. If par­ents could form a ros­ter and may be two par­ents come to­day and two oth­ers come to­mor­row to as­sist with tak­ing the names, tak­ing the tem­per­a­ture. We all need to co­op­er­ate and make the best out of this bad sit­u­a­tion.”

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