The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson claimed a handful of teachers at public schools were reassigned in breach of the union’s industrial agreement.

She said when the teachers reported to work yesterday, they were “locked out of the school gate”.

However, education director Marcellus Taylor said officials followed the union’s agreement.

The BUT president spoke to The Tribune yesterday about the first day of school saying things were fine in most cases, but reported some concerns.

“We still have the concern about the ongoing construction on TA Thompson, Government High, CH Reeves, Sybil Strachan – works should be completed soon. And we still have the matter of Stephen Dillet, five teachers and now we had another teacher at Yellow Elder who was locked out of the school gate today. So our attorneys along with our area vice president are at the Labour Department as we speak, mitigating those matters.”

Asked if these teachers were being locked out due to refusing reassignments, she claimed Mr Taylor was in breach of the union’s agreement.

“The director of education should be truthful and he should say how he breached the union’s industrial agreement and the reassignment was not done in the manner in which it should have been done. He did not follow the agreement, he is in breach and we are opposed to what has happened and now our lawyers along with those teachers are in the Labour Department. Maybe the director of education should follow the rules just how everyone else is expected to follow the rules,” she said.

She added: “As far as we’re concerned, they’re teachers at Stephen Dillet Primary School and that is where they should remain.”

For his part, Mr Taylor said education officials adhered to the agreement the government signed with the BUT.

“So we followed it and we hope the union follows it - Those matters, Stephen Dillet and that matter, have gone to consideration. I’m awaiting now, Mr (Robert) Farquharson’s judgement and we will go by the judgement. We’ll accept the judgement and I hope that the union accepts the judgement.”

As to the circumstances regarding teachers who were reassigned, Mr Taylor explained: “It was determined that they would be better off in another school, that we could better utilise them in another school. We try our best to put people in environments where they’re going to have success.

“Teachers sometimes determine ‘I’ve been here too long, I’m feeling stale. I wanna go some place with a new challenge’ and we don’t stop them. We could also identify perhaps this person is not being their best here or this environment doesn’t enable them to be their best or we need this type of skill over in that school.”

Meanwhile, Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin embarked on a tour of selected schools on the first day of school and encouraged returning students yesterday.

She said there will be a phased return to full face-to-face leaning over the next few days.

“By Thursday and Friday, we’re gonna have 100 percent face to face, which is the first time in more than two years,” she said.

“Our young people are resilient. But this pandemic and all of the associated disruptions, naturally will have some impact on many of the young people in these varying schools.

“So we’re excited, we are gearing up these young people to be the best that they can be in this year and in the succeeding years.”

She said officials will undertake universal testing to ascertain learning loss levels from the pandemic and put in place acceleration programmes for learning.

“The other thing we’re gonna do is we’re going to begin an analysing the exam results and the testing, GLAT and the other exams, so that we can understand where there are any vulnerabilities in the performance of young people to see whether we can create interventions, so that we don’t end up pushing children through school, when they continue to carry the burden of deficits until they graduate and then it becomes a crisis,” she said.

For his part, Mr Taylor said the reports from some principals early yesterday were that schools were “off to (a) good start”.

“In some instances, not all of the students reported to school. That could have been in part because of the rain and then some schools brought in children you know to deal with certain things like orientation, but in some schools they had all the children in. So it’s a range – it’s different by school,” he said.