Close the school!

SOME teachers are calling for the Frederick Smith Secondary School to be closed for the rest of the school term.

This call came during the recent Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union’s mass meeting that was held at Solidarity House.

In the words of one teacher, “Combermere was closed six weeks for stinking air, why can’t Frederick Smith School close for the remainder of the school term to give the teachers and students that experienced that horrific event some time at home to grieve and work through that grief?”

According to one male teacher, “Business cannot continue as usual,” and added that if school continues on like nothing happened, it desensitises the feelings of students who are looking on.

Teachers from the Frederick Smith School that attended the meeting were visibly shaken and traumatised from Friday’s ordeal.

One revealed that she used to teach the deceased, and like many teachers who are passionate about their jobs and enjoy teaching, stated that the child had come to be like one of her own, and now that he was snatched from the lives of many, she did not know how to continue teaching the class as though nothing happened.

After hearing the views of some of the teachers who teach at Frederick Smith, the other teachers in attendance rallied behind them and called for President of the BSTU, Mary-Anne Redman, to push for the school’s closing for the remainder of the term.

“It is what, week 10? I don’t see why the teachers and students at that school can’t have the rest of the school term off,” one said.

She believed it was inhumane to ask these teachers to continue to teach and attend school as though Friday’s event did not happen or had no real meaning in the lives of the students and teachers.

One teacher noted that while it was a good idea to provide the wands to the Frederick Smith School, the problem of violence is not only at Frederick Smith, it is “at all schools”.

“We need the metal wands at all schools. We don’t expect that it would fully arrest this situation of violence in schools, but we have to start doing something as a deterrent. We need more security, and security that does not just stand at a hut; a security that patrols and finds out these hiding places and stashing places that are purportedly at the school,” she said.

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