Redman: Combermere situation will not continue
THE problems at Combermere are not over.
Re-elected President of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU), Mary-Anne Redman, disclosed that this term has seen a continuation of smells and stench invading different sections of the school compound; sometimes forcing the evacuation of individual classrooms or larger blocks.
Redman, who was at the time addressing BSTU’s Annual General Meeting held at Harrison College yesterday, said that she received reports from members during the course of every week of the recently concluded term about the ongoing problems.
“Whether it is the sabotage that some have stated based on the reported presence of paper towels described as hand towels or the torn exercise books that the expert team has reportedly seen no actual evidence of, neither have they seen any pictorial evidence which the Minister claims to have.
“Whatever it is, we are putting the Ministry on guard. Our teachers and students have put up with and made accommodation for this ongoing major health hazard all term long. It will not continue into next term,” she stressed.
“The Ministry should have been made aware of all of the reports – the reported number of students that have fallen ill, the number of times that ambulances reportedly have had to remove children from the compound this term, the number of teachers that continue to fall ill. The reported situation is untenable and unconscionable.”
Redman told her members that neither the administration of the school nor the president of the PTA can be allowed to reportedly misrepresent the situation by stating as before that it is a garbage truck or a truck containing offal passing the school, or that the students who were photographed on the field by the press were there because it was break time.
“We have to stop burying our heads in the sand… Common sense and caring and concern for the health and well-being of all persons on the compound must now take precedence over anything and everything else … and all parties involved had better be aware of our position on this,” she stated.
Problems at St. George Secondary School
Focused on health and safety issues, Redman also highlighted that the BSTU recently visited the St. George Secondary School on two occasions. She said that they were able to see a well overflowing into the school yard, and on investigation they were informed that it was a sewage well.
“I could see small bits of toilet paper evident in the flowing, smelly water,” she revealed, pointed out that the water flowed across the school yard by the Resource Room and along various teaching areas.
According to the President, her officers were made to understand that this has been happening for a while, and that reports have been made, and that on occasions sanitary pads could also be seen floating.
“Again, we ask ourselves what is happening in some of our schools? What are some of our administrators and Boards of Management thinking? How has this problem not already been addressed? What message is being sent to workers and students in such circumstances in relation to any concern or caring or respect for them as workers and as people using that compound? And then when these people turn to the Union for help, what do administrators, ministry officials and boards of management expect the Union to do? Then when we have to act, why is their reaction a hostile one?”
Redman assured members that the Union is presently in the process of writing to the ministry in relation to that issue, as well as serious ongoing concerns at the school as it relates to student-on-student violence and student-on-teacher attacks, both of a physical and verbal nature.
“The teachers there are exposed to some of the most horrendous comments that children can make to adults,” she pointed out.
“I commend highly the teachers who work there and continue to give of their best under the most difficult, frustrating and demotivating of circumstances… A meeting with education officials must be had in short order to address the serious concerns there if the school is to have the type of start that the Ministry of Education might want at the beginning of next term… 2017 is a year of action… Anywhere we have members, we are addressing their concerns in the same way, with the same level of energy and commitment.” (TL)