The Tribune

By MORGAN ADDERLEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION Director Marcellus Taylor said yesterday that some parents have responded to the teacher turmoil at CH Reeves Junior High School by refusing to send their children to school.

In the wake of the unauthorised industrial action when dozens of teachers at the school withdrew service more than a week ago, Mr Taylor told The Tribune that the Department of Education held a meeting with the school's Parent Teachers Association last night to alleviate parents' concerns and inform them of the action that is being taken to assure their children's safety and educational needs are being met.

"It will be a meeting with the PTA," he said before yesterday's meeting. "The idea of conducting the meeting is to inform the parents of where we are and what is it that the Department is doing to ensure that their children are safe and also…what is it that we are doing with their children (while) teachers are refusing to work."

In Parliament on Wednesday morning, Education Minister Jeff Lloyd expressed disappointment in the teachers' actions, noting that only administrators and 10 of the school's 74 teachers have remained.

Mr Taylor reiterated this yesterday, saying: "Only 10 of the teachers regularly posted there are actually working. But we have some other persons, from what we call supply teachers, who…we are adding to the complement."

Mr Taylor described the logistics of how the remaining educators will manage the school's complement of 1,020 students in view of the teachers' actions.

"The school administration mobilises and they know how to strategically locate themselves around the school," Mr Taylor said. "We use teachers in strategic locations, whichever teachers we have. Then we use the prefects to help as well. And as we get more and more teachers, supply teachers, or any other persons like that, then we put them strategically."

Mr Taylor noted class sizes are also expanded. "And then we change the size of the class groupings. So while you might normally have 25 or 30 children in a class, you might put 40 in a class. So that more of them are under the supervision of an adult."

The education director admitted he is concerned about the impact this will have on the quality of education the students are receiving, adding that "every day, every minute, every hour - whatever unit of time you want to use - that children are not getting the full-fledged instruction" is regrettable.

"And this isn't only to do with this industrial activity," he continued. "This is our concern even in regular time. Every time somebody wants to come in and do a special assembly on something that goes on for two hours, we're losing valuable instructional time.

"As a matter of fact, our focus this year is how we could improve the 'time on task' - the time we have and how much of that time we spend on the main task, which is the…learning process. So this clearly interrupts that.

"Parents have expressed their concern in different ways," Mr Taylor added. "One way that some parents express their concern is not to send their children to school."

When asked if parents have expressed concern regarding the teachers' initial claims, which include a suspicion of mould in 12 classrooms and termite infestation, Mr Taylor said he was not made aware of any such issues by the parents.

During Parliament on Wednesday, Mr Lloyd said a meeting was scheduled for Tuesday at 3pm between Mr Taylor, his executive team, and Anthony Ryan of the Environmental Monitoring Risk Assessment Division in the Department of Environmental Health at the request of the Bahamas Union of Teachers.

"However at 3.10pm, ten minutes after the agreed time the union called to say that they were otherwise engaged and could not meet. The union has not been heard from since," Mr Lloyd said.

Despite numerous attempts, The Tribune was unable to get in contact with the Bahamas Union of Teachers up to press time yesterday.