RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the reg­is­tra­tion and op­er­a­tions of Sarah’s Prepara­to­ry School in La Ro­maine af­ter 20 res­i­dents—many of them el­der­ly—signed a pe­ti­tion com­plain­ing of ex­ces­sive noise and traf­fic in their qui­et sea­side com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dents say the dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ty at the school has dis­rupt­ed what was once a peace­ful res­i­den­tial area. How­ev­er, the school’s own­er main­tains she is op­er­at­ing with­in the law, not­ing that oth­er schools func­tion in sim­i­lar neigh­bour­hoods.

Pen­sion­er Fazal Mo­hamed said the com­mo­tion has been par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­tress­ing for his house­hold. His wife suf­fers from de­men­tia, and he be­lieves the noise wors­ens her con­di­tion.

“Any noise at all af­fects her very bad­ly,” Mo­hamed said. “Es­pe­cial­ly at re­cess time. When they start, it is very hard.”

He said the shout­ing and ac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing break pe­ri­ods are clear­ly au­di­ble from his home on most school days.

“At first, I thought we could have meet­ings with the prin­ci­pal and com­pro­mise in some way, but that has not worked,” he added.

Mo­hamed said he does not wish to see any­one’s liveli­hood af­fect­ed but be­lieves the school should be re­lo­cat­ed to a more suit­able lo­ca­tion.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Madan Singh, who has lived in the area for 50 years, said the trans­for­ma­tion of the neigh­bour­hood has been stark.

“This is a res­i­den­tial area—no com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty,” he said. “I am near­ly 80 years old. I can’t sit on my porch.”

Singh de­scribed dai­ly traf­fic con­ges­tion dur­ing drop-off and pick-up times, with ve­hi­cles lin­ing the road­way and re­strict­ing res­i­dents’ ac­cess to their homes.

“When they have a break, you hear plen­ty noise, chil­dren scream­ing and shout­ing,” he said. “When school is over, all the cars come at once.”

He al­so claimed that cor­re­spon­dence from Town and Coun­try Plan­ning in 2024 in­di­cat­ed the prop­er­ty was be­ing used for in­sti­tu­tion­al pur­pos­es with­out the re­quired ap­proval for change of use. Singh said he was ad­vised he could pur­sue le­gal ac­tion but not­ed that do­ing so would be cost­ly.

Vi­nood Singh, who works from home, said the noise has af­fect­ed both his pro­fes­sion­al and fam­i­ly life.

“Every day is noise,” he said. “From about 9.30 am to 10.15 am dur­ing break, and again at lunchtime.”

He re­called that dur­ing his daugh­ter’s CXC ex­am­i­na­tions last year, the con­stant dis­tur­bance left her in tears.

“She was home study­ing and she was ac­tu­al­ly cry­ing a few times be­cause the noise was re­al­ly af­fect­ing her,” he said.

Be­yond the noise, Singh said traf­fic con­ges­tion has be­come a ma­jor con­cern.

“The whole street is blocked in the morn­ing and evening,” he said. “When they have field trips, cars are parked for the en­tire day. Some­times even 7 pm, maxi taxis pass­ing up and down, block­ing the road­way, and the ex­haust fumes cre­ate a health haz­ard.”

He added that many res­i­dents in the area are el­der­ly, some with heart con­di­tions and de­men­tia, and said the on­go­ing dis­rup­tions have height­ened anx­i­ety with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.

While res­i­dents say they do not op­pose busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty, they ar­gue that the scale and na­ture of the school’s op­er­a­tions are in­com­pat­i­ble with the res­i­den­tial set­ting.

A school of­fi­cial, who de­clined to be named, main­tained that the in­sti­tu­tion is not break­ing the law. She pre­sent­ed reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments per­mit­ting busi­ness op­er­a­tions at the lo­ca­tion and said the school has ex­ist­ed for 31 years, ini­tial­ly in Point Fortin. Fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, she said, the school re­lo­cat­ed to La Ro­maine at the in­vi­ta­tion of a neigh­bour.

When con­tact­ed, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said the Min­istry was re­view­ing the mat­ter.