Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School in Bel­mont were called to col­lect their chil­dren around mid­day yes­ter­day, af­ter school of­fi­cials raised con­cerns about the con­di­tion of sev­er­al class­rooms on the com­pound.

A What­sApp mes­sage sent to Guardian Me­dia by a source at the school out­lined a num­ber of is­sues, in­clud­ing bro­ken class­room par­ti­tions that re­port­ed­ly wob­bled un­der slight pres­sure, ex­posed met­al strips with sharp edges, miss­ing light bulbs in one class­room, and a hole left be­hind by a met­al gate. Smoke and soot stains were al­so vis­i­ble along a stair­case wall.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the school, stu­dents were seen wait­ing for par­ents to pick them up. A se­cu­ri­ty guard on du­ty con­firmed that class­es had been dis­missed ear­ly.

Par­ent Shamalia Ew­ing said she had to leave work to col­lect her daugh­ter and ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that long-stand­ing is­sues at the school had not been re­solved dur­ing the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od.

“My daugh­ter was re­al­ly ex­cit­ed to come to school to­day, but it’s frus­trat­ing be­cause school was closed for two months, so these is­sues could have been ad­dressed be­fore,” Ew­ing said.

“She has been go­ing to this school since she was five years old. This is not the first time school has opened and the same prob­lems have arisen, forc­ing the school to close for a pe­ri­od of time.

“I don’t know what they’re go­ing to do to ad­dress this, but we can’t con­tin­ue like this. What about par­ents who can’t leave their jobs right now to pick up their chil­dren?”

Ew­ing said she was un­cer­tain whether class­es would re­sume to­day, not­ing that if the prob­lems re­mained un­re­solved, the school could be forced to re­main closed.

She said the sit­u­a­tion would cre­ate ad­di­tion­al chal­lenges for work­ing par­ents, in­clud­ing her­self, who would now have to arrange su­per­vi­sion for their chil­dren.

While at the school, Guardian Me­dia ob­served one vis­i­bly up­set moth­er telling a teacher she was se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing trans­fer­ring her son to an­oth­er school.

“This kind of mes­sage you’re send­ing to par­ents? You have to be jok­ing,” the woman said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed prin­ci­pal Claudette Gov­er­nor for com­ment, but she de­clined, say­ing she was un­able to speak to the me­dia.

Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) pres­i­dent Adan­na Trail said the struc­tur­al con­cerns were not new and had pre­vi­ous­ly been brought to the at­ten­tion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. She said par­ents and stu­dents were now in lim­bo, with no in­di­ca­tion of when class­es would re­sume.

“Now that school has re­opened, the is­sues are still there and it’s even worse than be­fore,” Trail said.

“The chil­dren are now at home and we don’t know when school is go­ing to open again be­cause these is­sues need to be re­solved.”

Trail said the dis­rup­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing for her, as her daugh­ter is en­ter­ing Stan­dard Five and prepar­ing for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA).

“It will af­fect their per­for­mance in a way,” she said.

“I’m just hop­ing it can be re­solved. It’s not a very big school, but it’s not very small ei­ther. The chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion is im­por­tant and it needs to be treat­ed as a pri­or­i­ty.”