According to Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) officials, the Ministry of Education has once again “failed” to meet the needs of teachers at D W Davis Junior High School, while others at H O Nash Junior High School, Lowe Sound Primary in Andros and S C Bootle High School in Cooper’s Town, Abaco, are faced with school administration challenges.
The entire teaching staff and the administration of Lowe Sound Primary, are refusing to enter their North Andros classrooms after parents “viciously” harassed them.
“They outright said that we needed to be harassed and that we weren’t doing anything. They didn’t want us there,” Shop Steward for the primary school, Ivas Gaitor said.
She added that since the start of the academic year, teachers have had numerous run-ins with “angry” parents.
“Well from the beginning of the semester, we’ve had a number of problems at our school. It first started with the parents writing a petition against our principal,” she said.
“We’ve had a number of meetings where the parents got up and disrespected us. And we just felt that we needed to take a stand because Lowe Sound has a history of [parents] writing petitions against principals and being just genuinely disgruntled for no apparent reason.”
Ms Gaitor made it clear, that teachers did not agree with the parents’ complaints against the school’s principal, Cardinal Woods. She said that parents claimed that he was “complacent” and “lacked leadership skills.”
“Personally, Mr Woods was right there for us,” she said. “He went overboard for us, so we knew parents were just being vicious and outrageous.”
As a result of the ongoing battle between parents and the school’s administration, five teachers travelled to New Providence and met with Education Ministry officials to request transfers to other schools in Andros.
Meanwhile, parents on the island are allegedly instructing classes.
Teachers at the D W Davis Junior High School continued their sit-out yesterday, as BUT President, Ida Poitier and General Secretary, Belinda Wilson, met at the school with Ministry of Education officials, to iron out structural conditions.
Sixty- seven teachers began their sit-out on Friday. Area Vice President for the New Providence District, Donathon Cox, said they will remain out of classes until officials at the Ministry of Education “complete an acceptable amount of repairs.”
Their list of demands includes the repair of fans and lights experiencing electrical problems, molding on the walls and ceilings, lack of school supplies and provisions for handicapped students.
“Over 600 female students have to use four bathroom cubicles,” he said. “It looks like we are going to have to compromise our faith once again and give them another deadline to complete the whole list of demands.”
The meeting was rescheduled for today. Union members and the school’s administration will try to reach an “amicable decision.”
H O Nash Junior High School teachers sat-out yesterday in protest of the school’s new Senior Mistress, Mrs Shavanda Darville, according to Mrs Poitier.
She said that the teachers are “a little perturbed” because they wanted a senior master to combat the predominantly male student population.
She added that the sit-out will continue indefinitely.
Students have also jumped aboard the sit-out bandwagon, as the entire student body of the S C Bootle High School protested at the institution.
On a Radio Abaco talk show, students claimed they were protesting because of a shortage of teachers at that establishment.
According to a news source in Abaco, “students say they have been promised teachers over and over and are now simply fed up with showing up at school with no one there to instruct.”
The source added that the students threatened to take their placards to the streets, if they do not get some sort of satisfaction by the end of the week.
Until teachers return to the various government schools, students are left to fend for themselves, as some parents continue to drop their children to the schools.
By: IANTHIA SMITH and JASMIN BONIMY, The Nassau Guardian
