Another secondary school has closed its gate, on Wednesday, as a result of constant heavy rains.
More than three hundred students and staff members at the St. Mary Secondary School had to return home and according to the principal, Casey Phillip, classes have been affected by heavy rainfall since Tuesday.
Earlier this week, a decision was made to close Clare Hall Secondary School for the remainder of the week due to a flea infestation.
Phillip explained that the rains affected the schoolyard but not the classrooms.
“The condition is such that when it rains very heavily, the parking situation at the school for teachers is compromised badly. Teachers were unable to find proper parking, they were able to, for the most part, exit their vehicles without stepping into water, into mud, etc. That would have been going on for quite a while. The classroom are not affected, it is just the yard that is affected and so because teachers aren’t able to park, they are not really able to come to work. ” said the principal.
This is not a new occurrence at the school as a lack of proper drainage has been an issue on the compound yet to be resolved.
“The problem seems to be that there is no proper run-off for the water and so when it rains, what happens is the water settles and run-off takes a few days. So we have stagnant water, we would have to call the Central Board of Health to spray the yard a few times because the water would have taken too long to run-off” said Phillip.
Education Director Clare Browne says that the school was built on reclaimed land and so they have constantly been faced with a drainage challenge.
The principal has requested that gravel be poured in the flooded areas and according to Browne the ministry is working alongside the Ministry Of Public Works to rectify the issue.
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If this problem existed for sometime now, why did the authorities allow the problem to reach to this point…… ? In my view the teachers were clearly taking industrial actions and rightly so! It is full time that the authorities be proactive rather than active whenever the problem exist. Sometimes square pegs are placed in round holes….. Perhaps, The engineers per should be blamed for this…
The most sensible comment I have seen on the matter.
So because the teachers can’t get good parking they close the school….I wouldn’t even mind if y’all said that the classrooms were affected …smh this is some nonsense before time teachers use to walk to school rain or rain not….
If it was just about parking I would agree with you, but imagine your vehicle is parked on the road coming down to the school and when you reach back younger logo is ripped off. Or because of the narrow roads outside the gate you are hit and nobody owns it? How would you feel if your child is being bitten by mosquitoes bred in the stagnant water and comes home with Dengue.
How would you feel that your child took sick and the ambulance couldn’t get in to your child so the child was walked out in the rain. What if your child couldn’t have assembly because the area is all mud.
Come visit then talk. Ask the teachers about sitting down over water till feet swell. Explain to teachers who going replace front end parts.
Who in the kitchen………
The real problem is not as simple as just parking. Teacher’s vehicles are vandalized if not parked in a secure area. The area outside the gate isn’t conducive to parking forcing teachers to park in the road. If a teacher needs to leave urgently, all the teachers have to move their vehicles to let out that one teacher. A child took sick and had to be walked out to the ambulance. And all teachers getting for the past 5 years is promises.
Does that make sense?
This problem is going on even before the school was built, poor engineering and lack of knowledge of the surroundings… a new and modern school should have pave parking not grass parking.
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