SASCHA WIL­SON

& KELLYANN LEMMESY

Con­fu­sion and chaos marred the first day of school for pupils of St Therese RC and Poole RC Pri­ma­ry schools in Rio Claro.

Armed with plac­ards, par­ents of St Therese RC protest­ed the un­safe con­di­tions on the up­per floor of the school where their chil­dren are housed.

For the past five years, pupils of Poole RC have been oc­cu­py­ing the down­stairs floor of the St Therese RC School. But fol­low­ing an elec­tri­cal is­sue at the 76-year-old build­ing last No­vem­ber and the di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion of the up­per floor, the par­ents of St Therese kept their chil­dren at home.

When pupils of Poole RC re­turned to school yes­ter­day they had to sit on bench­es out­side of the build­ing as St Therese’s par­ents de­mand­ed that their chil­dren use the down­stairs lev­el in­stead. An Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) re­port high­light­ed sev­er­al safe­ty is­sues in­clud­ing ter­mite-in­fest­ed floors, walls, doors and fur­ni­ture.

Apart from the elec­tri­cal is­sue, OS­HA not­ed that an­oth­er con­cern was lim­it­ed aisle space in the class­rooms that could re­sult in pupils and teach­ers trip­ping and falling, pos­ing a se­ri­ous risk of in­jury.

St Therese RC PTA pres­i­dent Eliz­a­beth Cor­ban had re­ject­ed a sug­ges­tion that both schools oc­cu­py the down­stairs lev­el. Call­ing on the min­istry to find a res­o­lu­tion, she said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is de­lib­er­ate­ly putting our chil­dren at risk of in­jury and death by not treat­ing this is­sue with the ur­gency which they de­serve and war­rant­ed. There was an agree­ment af­ter the min­istry of­fi­cials met with the school ad­min­is­tra­tion, they com­mit­ted to have all nec­es­sary re­pairs com­plete for the school re­open­ing ... to the up­stairs. How­ev­er, noth­ing was done.”

Not­ing that the Poole RC pupils were sup­posed to have been housed at the school for on­ly three months, Cor­ban said it was un­fair that those chil­dren were be­ing taught in com­fort while the St Therese pupils were un­com­fort­able.

Mean­while, St Therese par­ent Sher­ry-Ann Ma­hadeo said the chil­dren were un­able to sit end-of-term tests or have a Christ­mas treat. She said it was on­ly fair that their chil­dren oc­cu­py the “bet­ter half” of the school.

Poole RC’s par­ent Rad­hi­ca Ram­nar­ine was con­cerned about what was hap­pen­ing as they (par­ents) were not al­lowed to en­ter the school com­pound.

“So right now all our stuff (fur­ni­ture etc) are out­side and we chil­dren are sit­ting on the bench­es out­side, just wait­ing. Noth­ing is hap­pen­ing yet.”

An­oth­er Poole RC par­ent, Ann-Marie Boodoos­ingh, said it was sad that their chil­dren did not have a prop­er school of their own.

“The chil­dren are out­side right now and to­day is the first day of the year for school. It’s not sup­pose to be this way. We are call­ing on the min­istry, who­ev­er can as­sist us with the sit­u­a­tion be­cause it is on­go­ing. It’s been years these chil­dren have been oc­cu­py­ing the down­stairs. It’s un­com­fort­able and it’s not san­i­tary,” she com­plained.

Rio Claro South coun­cil­lor David Law, who was at the school, placed the blame square­ly on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s shoul­ders. Pledg­ing his sol­i­dar­i­ty with the par­ents and pupils of both schools, he said, “It’s a very con­tentious is­sue which un­for­tu­nate­ly is caus­ing some di­vi­sion and con­tention among the par­ents and the stu­dent and that should not be.”

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, she said, “This dis­cus­sion is on­go­ing with the RC (Ro­man Catholic) Board to­wards a res­o­lu­tion.”