Par­ents of pupils at the Wood­brook Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain, staged an ear­ly-morn­ing protest out­side the school yes­ter­day, de­mand­ing au­thor­i­ties re­lo­cate the stu­dents and ur­gent­ly ad­dress health and safe­ty is­sues and the di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tions. Pres­i­dent of the Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA), Dar­ren Fletch­er, said the build­ing was over 100 years old and was not struc­tural­ly sound to house class­es.

He added: "Just yes­ter­day, the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion did a fire drill and, since the build­ing is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing, ad­vised against us­ing the wood­en stairs on the west­ern side and to use the con­crete stairs in­stead. "Be­cause it is over 100 years old, it is ter­mite-rid­den. The orig­i­nal build­ing was done in tapia, then plas­tered with sand but the wood is rot­ten on the in­side. For years they have plas­tered and paint­ed it over. "It may look good on the out­side but it's crum­bling from the in­side."

Fletch­er said the roof was so ter­mite-rid­den it was a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen and could cave in be­cause one of the main pil­lars had rot­ted away and the oth­ers were al­so falling apart. He added that the bath­room fa­cil­i­ties and plumb­ing al­so were in need of re­pairs. He said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Co Ltd (EF­CL) were sent let­ters about the school's di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion over the past three years.

Fletch­er said an as­sess­ment by EF­CL de­scribed the con­di­tion of the school as "not so bad." How­ev­er, the Fire De­part­ment deemed it un­fit and struc­tural­ly un­sound while the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion con­demned the floor up­stairs and de­scribed the crum­bling walls as ma­jor haz­ards. He said there were no prob­lems with the "ex­cel­lent" teach­ers and prin­ci­pal of the school who gave yeo­man ser­vice but the in­sti­tu­tion was un­der­staffed.

Fletch­er ap­pealed to the EF­CL and Ed­u­ca­tion MIn­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh to do some­thing for the school. He rec­om­mend­ed that a pre­fab­ri­cat­ed struc­ture should be erect­ed on the site and the old school de­mol­ished and re­placed. Fletch­er, a civ­il en­gi­neer, said the pre­fab­ri­cat­ed struc­ture was fea­si­ble and could be set up in one week­end.