Lawrence T. Gay Primary to end term early

While face-to-face classes resume at the Lawrence T. Gay Primary on Tuesday, it will be only for a short week.

This as Minister of Education, Santia Bradshaw, announced the Spooners Hill facility will be closed on Friday until January in order to facilitate repairs and industrial cleaning.

Students and teachers have been at the physical plant sporadically throughout the term as environmental issues, which have plagued the school for several years, forced several closures – the latest of which was two weeks ago. During this time, an environmental assessment was conducted and a report handed to the Education Ministry.

The minister pointed out remedial work was done to try to address the issue of the foul odour, which had left several students and teachers falling ill with sore throats, rashes, itchy eyes and shortness of breath.

“At the centre of the issues that have been plaguing this institution for a long time is there have been a number of odours that they have been unable to identify exactly what the source of the odours have been, and we have had a number of recommendations from Environmental Health (division) indicating that a number of the odours are not affecting the external community and therefore they have turned their attention back into the school plant to see whether there was any issue with the septic tank or the wells or the various pipes. We have completed the majority of those works and workers are here cleaning out the grease trap and that will be sealed this afternoon, so as of Tuesday, we are satisfied that the school plant can reopen,” Bradshaw stated.

Speaking to the media after a thorough walk-through of the educational establishment with the school’s management and several members of the Parent/Teacher Association yesterday, she noted however it was necessary to have an earlier start to conducting infrastructural works on the compound.

“In some of the classrooms there has been leaking, perhaps becoming more persistent as a result of the heavy rain and we do not want to inconvenience the teachers and students who have been operating in this environment. So we want to close school on Friday, December 4, to allow the Ministry of Education to put things in place to accelerate the civil works program for this school during the Christmas period,” Bradshaw outlined.

Expressing happiness at being able to indicate the school’s issues to the minister, Head of the PTA Stephanie Williams said: “We are willing to compromise with the Ministry and we appreciate that they are working to get things here working at the school and going forward, I hope that communication remains open to continue the work here.” (JMB)