Wilkie PTA: Enough is enough!

The Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary School’s Parent Teacher Association is demanding answers as to where its student population will attend school come September.

In a virtual meeting with the media yesterday morning, President of the PTA Vernon Forde outlined the Pine facility had been falling into a state of disrepair over the years, despite the association’s efforts and requests for help from the Education ministry.

He listed a myriad of plumbing and electrical issues, a lack of covered walkways, inadequate bathroom stalls and the collapse of one block’s roof during heavy rains as just some of the matters plaguing the plant.

Noting the ministry’s most recent assurance had come during the last term that these matters would be dealt with over the summer break, Forde said no such work had started and in fact, a recent statement was issued saying the school will remain closed for the first term while the work was carried out.

“Before this summer vacation, we were told that work at the school would start during the summer to try to repair the main block that was damaged, and again, we took them at their word and we observed, and we saw nothing happen…But now, at minute to midnight, you have a statement being made that school is going to be closed for renovations for at least the first term, and the teachers are now tasked with trying to find locations for children. But that to me is ridiculous! Our teachers are supposed to be preparing to teach our children come the 20th of September when they’re supposed to be going back to school, not trying to find places to house school. I do not believe that is a responsibility of our teachers. It isn’t! Why should it be laid on them to have to source locations to house 500 plus children? I don’t think that’s right,” he stated, adding that “enough was enough”.

Saying the PTA was prepared to picket the ministry if work was not started, he stated that in the meantime, parents, teachers and students were under a cloud of uncertainty as to what would happen when the term started in four weeks.

Teachers’ Representative Shodie Cobham painted scenes of daily frustration experienced by herself and colleagues.

“Teachers are frustrated and we are uncomfortable and that’s the truth. From when the main building was out of commission, they asked us to bear with them to work on the bottom floor, although it was not 100 per cent secure, but we always try to put our children first and try to maintain our academic standards so we worked along. But it seems every time you’re promised something or you try to make it to the end of the school year so that work can be done, it seems to be something else. We were promised work [would be] done in this summer

vacation but work was supposed to be done at Christmas vacation, and in the Easter vacation, going back to all last year summer vacation. So it’s not only a case of we were promised something this summer and it didn’t happen, it is a case that we are constantly made promises that are never happening,” she asserted.

Giving examples of the worsening issues, Cobham, who has been a teacher at the school for over 11 years, outlined some of the ongoing problems.

“We have a severe plumbing issue. If the plumber does not come to our school every week, it is every other week. We have over 500 children, and we literally have two male student bathrooms and two female student bathrooms, so you can understand the pressure on the bathrooms, which is why the plumber is always being called in to fix the bathrooms. Imagine when one bathroom is out of use and the whole student population of females has to use one single bathroom. That is extremely uncomfortable for our students and our staff. The principal’s office is extremely small, and it also leaks. So every time the rain falls all the classrooms leak, the staff room leaks. So the collapsing of the roof on the main building was a build-up of the pressure and the fact that the school wanted work for several years,” she stressed, while pleading with the ministry to think of the students and how they were being affected. (JMB)