Teachers at the San Juan North Secondary School have enforced a refusal to work protocol amid concerns over the infrastructural integrity of several classroom blocks on the school compound.
On October 4, a 13-year-old student at the school was hit on his head by piece of a concrete slab which fell from one of the structures.
Since then, teachers have expressed concerns over the conditions at the school and refused to teach in classrooms located on blocks where there are safety concerns.
T&T Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) second vice president Marsha Huggins said the school is still unsafe but has not been closed by the Ministry of Education.
“In the classroom blocks, we still have issues, especially on the top floor. You have issues where the ceiling is coming loose, so there is the potential of it falling on students. It is a great potential for that there and we have leaks in the roofs and things like that,” Huggins said.
She said given the situation, the teachers have the right to refuse to work in the affected areas.
“The ministry has not given any mandate for the school to be closed so it means that the administrator, whoever is in charge there, is going to have to manage the situation with regards to students and so on and make judgement calls on a daily basis to decide whether or not it is safe for the students to be there,” she added.
Yesterday, OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) officials visited the compound to assess the situation. They were accompanied by TTUTA representatives, among them Industrial Relations Officer Kevyn Kerr.
Speaking afterwards, Kerr said during the walk-through a large number of infrastructural issues were discovered, including cracks in the walls, compromised ceilings, bat droppings and mould.
He said following the tour, the OSH inspectors committed to doing a report on the issues to send to the ministry, along with recommendations on what needs to be fixed.
In the meantime, Kerr explained that the OSH agency has validated several of the concerns raised by the teachers.
“Some parts of the school, certain blocks, certain levels, were given a prohibition notice where they can’t access those parts of the school and other parts would have been given an improvement notice,” he explained.
He said because of that, some teachers were allowed to continue teaching while others were sent to “safe areas.”
He said approximately three classroom blocks have been totally closed off. He said there were engineers from the ministry working on the buildings in question.
The TTUTA executive members hope that the issues affecting the school and others with similar problems will be treated as a matter of priority by the ministry so that “we would not have the continued interruption of the delivery of education to our students.”
Four days after the incident involving the student, the ministry said while the emergency repairs were ongoing, the school had not been shut down.
It said the areas under repair had been isolated and students were attending school on rotation.
The ministry added that the San Juan North Secondary School is one of more than 300 schools which are over 40 years old and is one of 26 schools which have been approved by the Cabinet for major infrastructural repair. This work was carded to begin this month.
It said assessments are ongoing in other schools of advanced age and a programme of the critical infrastructural upgrade will continue to be implemented, alongside the usual programme of emergency repair that continues daily at the nation’s schools.