Vauxhall Primary to remain closed this week

THE Vauxhall Primary School will be closed for the remainder of the week as some repairs are to be carried out there.

Education Minister, Santia Bradshaw, told this to the media following an extensive tour of the educational institution yesterday with Ministry personnel, members of the school’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) and concerned parents.

During the visit, she viewed first-hand the reported environmental problems, which included issues with mould and broken fencing, sightings of rodent droppings and issues with unsanitary bathrooms, that exist at the Christ Church school. Her tour follows a PTA meeting held on Tuesday at the school where these issues and others were the main topics for discussion.

Bradshaw gave the assurance that the reported issues will be addressed. She said the Ministry had started the process back in December by “having the personnel along with Environmental Health visit the school with the view to identifying areas of priority, so that we will be able to acquire the necessary finances to start the work that was necessary to be carried out”. She also stated that Vauxhall Primary had already been earmarked to have repairs done during the upcoming domestic summer programme. However, because of the matter at hand, some work will be carried out at this time.

She stated one of the areas of major concern was the school’s bathroom facilities. She said work will commence there from today.

“There is only one main bathroom for girls and boys, and I feel very strongly we need to address this urgently.”

She added, “It is likely the work will normally take about two weeks and we are in discussions with the contractor as to how we can possibly seek to bring that time down in terms of maybe a week or so. So with that in mind, that being for us the major priority at this point in time, we are seeing to close school tomorrow [Thursday] and Friday, which would allow us at least four days in order to go into the weekend with a view to being able to bring in all the teams from tomorrow [Thursday] to start to address a number of the concerns.”

Bradshaw said if more time is required, the Ministry will inform the PTA, students and staff of the school.

“We will update you in terms of any possible relocations. We are still in discussions with the Chief Education Officer (Acting) with the view to making some determinations to the next step come Monday, because it will take a bit of time for us to get the bathroom facilities back up and running.”

President of the PTA, Adrian Husbands, was on hand during the briefing with the media. He thanked the Minister for promptly visiting the school to see first-hand what the environmental problems were. He also said that the PTA will be working with the Ministry to get the issues rectified. (MG)