Kali­fa Clyne

An on­go­ing dis­pute be­tween the par­ent and teacher as­so­ci­a­tion of St Bar­bara's Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School and its prin­ci­pal Bar­bara Gray-Burke will be re­ferred to the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

So said Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, in re­sponse to ques­tions from re­porters at the Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion, off the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way in Mal­oney yes­ter­day. The school, which was of­fi­cial­ly opened by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, was the venue for yes­ter­day's Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions.

With­out nam­ing the au­thor, Gopeesingh said a let­ter was writ­ten to the min­is­ter out­lin­ing the prob­lem be­hind the dis­pute. He said there seemed to be dif­fer­ent views on the prob­lem."This is a mat­ter for the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate," he said, adding that his min­istry "will be send­ing the mat­ter to the Com­mis­sion for de­ter­mi­na­tion."Gopeesingh said the mat­ter seemed sim­i­lar to one which oc­curred in the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School, where the board of that school did not want the prin­ci­pal.

He said he will work with his Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, the Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer and the el­ders of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty "but the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion is the one which de­ter­mines the is­sue of the prin­ci­pal."He said it will be the com­mis­sion which will de­ter­mine "whether the prin­ci­pal moves or stays. That is the is­sue for the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to de­ter­mine."Gray-Burke , who ad­dressed cel­e­bra­tions at the school yes­ter­day made an in­di­rect re­sponse to the protest.

"Don't mind the lit­tle hic­cup on the way. Sa­tan must mash our heels and bruise our toes but we are go­ing to go on."Pressed for elab­o­ra­tion lat­er, she said: "To­day I am cel­e­brat­ing, Wednes­day check me."

How it start­ed

The PTA protest­ed on Fri­day call­ing for the re­moval of the chair­man of the school's board, Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Gray-Burke.They held plac­ards as their chil­dren stood in front of them dur­ing a protest out­side the school at Mal­oney on Fri­day morn­ing.Nigel Thomp­son, who has three sons at the school, ex­pressed out­rage over what he de­scribed as ne­glect of the school's needs.

Thomp­son, vice pres­i­dent of the PTA, said the school of­ten ran out of light­bulbs, mark­ers for white­boards, ink for print­ers and oth­er nec­es­sary items, leav­ing par­ents and teach­ers to pur­chase them."Bar­bara Gray-Burke has re­fused to meet with us de­spite many re­quests that she do so," Thomp­son said.The cat­a­lyst for the protest was the can­cel­la­tion of a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist cel­e­bra­tion for pupils.

Thomp­son said teach­ers and par­ents had spent weeks prepar­ing to stage a re-en­act­ment of a tra­di­tion­al Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist thanks­giv­ing for pupils, but the day be­fore, Gray-Burke called the school to pro­hib­it the ac­tiv­i­ty."The chil­dren came in their dress­es and head­wraps made by their par­ents. They were ex­cit­ed for the ac­tiv­i­ty and they came here to do noth­ing," Thomp­son said.Bidia Ram­sud­har­said the school was be­ing al­lowed to de­te­ri­o­rate.Gray-Burke shut down the cafe­te­ria, she said.

"She said the clean­ing ser­vice at the school would be dis­con­tin­ued. Teach­ers are left with­out sup­plies and she is against all ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties for the stu­dents."I am a par­ent. I have four chil­dren at­tend­ing this school and I am con­cerned at the things that go on here."The school has six teach­ers and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 250 pupils. Gray-Burke was a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Sen­a­tor be­tween 1995 and 2000.The 2,000-square-foot build­ing was com­plet­ed in three months by Su­per In­dus­tri­al Ser­vices Ltd in 2012.