The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

DOMINIQUE McCartney-Russell, acting director of Education, said the Uriah McPhee Primary School is expected to open today with staggered learning that will see some students return today and others next week.

Mrs McCartney-Russell told reporters that contractors identified issues that prevented the school from opening before today.

“They discovered some other things, right, and so that meant they had to do some work in the pre-school area, but they also discovered that one of the AC units was not working,” she said, adding that the school is hot without a working AC.

“The AC unit was actually on order, one of the contractors said, but while the structural contractor was working, whatever he did, there was a lot of dust. It created some issues in terms of the cleanliness of the environment.”

She said officials hired a company to clean the heavy dust from the school.

“I haven't gotten an update yet, but it's expected that school would open for Uriah (today), staggered, of course, because we want to orient the children and particularly the newer ones into the environment,” she said. “So hopefully by tomorrow we will have those issues addressed.”

Uriah McPhee Primary School has a student population of approximately 600 students.

Mrs McCartney-Russell also said officials are trying to open the Holmes Rock Junior High School in Grand Bahama in January. The school was expected to open this semester.

“We were advised that by October November it would be completed and so we will use December, which is really only one week for students, we will use that week to prepare but they have already started preparing to be quite honest so we're thinking to open that in January,” she said.