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Teachers hold protest in Eleuthera over series of issues

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PRESTON Albury High School teachers and parents in Eleuthera protested over a myriad of concerns such as a teacher shortage and lack of support for dealing with insubordinate students.

Asked if there were some disruptions to classes, acting director of education Dominique McCartney- Russell indicated there may have been some because few of the teachers were outside.

“We have asked the district superintendent to ensure that those children participate in our virtual platform,” she said.

According to a flyer that was circulated, there are calls for more teachers for core subjects, especially mathematics, English language and technical areas.

The Bahamas Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson said the union is in full support of the protest.

She added that for several months now teachers have been complaining about a teacher shortage, violence on school campuses, disrespect by students towards teachers and the overall safety on campus.

“The matters have not been satisfactorily addressed as yet,” Mrs Wilson said. “These matters have been brought to the attention of the administration, the district superintendent, the acting director, and others - meetings were held last year. However, the matters have not been addressed.

“It is said that two teachers have been identified to come to Preston Albury High School. However, our further investigation revealed that the teachers do not have anywhere to live. They have not yet secured accommodations for them to live.

“So they have been advised not to leave the comfort of their homes to travel to Eleuthera for uncertainty. There are teachers who are home waiting to be hired from 2022 and a few of them from 2021. Education must address these concerns forthwith. It is 2023, (it’s the) same issues over and over. This is unacceptable.”

Mrs McCartney-Russell told The Tribune the district superintendent has already spoken with the school administrators.

She added he has spoken with parents and with the teachers through their union, so they expect that those meetings will take place this week.

“Our response is that we will meet with the teachers and also the other community stakeholders because we want everybody involved in the process to look at the concerns that they have addressed with the school principal (and) to see how we can mitigate those concerns. We want to deal with the issues.”

The acting director also spoke about redeployment and housing issues regarding teachers going to out islands.

“The thing is, you know, it’s a revolving door. Our issue, of course, is always finding adequate housing for teachers and ensuring that they have the funds to travel,” Mrs McCartney- Russell said.

“So those items because we had persons redeployed at the last-minute last year, we now have to replace those teachers and we do have the teachers available. We just, like I said, waiting, ensuring they get all of their allowances to go.”

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