The Tribune

GREEN Castle Primary School in Eleuthera has enough teachers and online criticisms are a misunderstanding, according to acting education director Dominique Russell.

Following the circulation of a video and photos on social media of a classroom of students in the Green Castle Primary School, with no teacher in the room, Mrs Russell said the ministry has looked into the issue and addressed it.

Mrs Russell said for the school of 60 students, some of the classes have been combined so the three teachers on the campus can serve the students better.

She said: "We would have investigated that. The teacher was in the classroom. She was called out by the principal for some reason. And when she was called out that picture or video was taken.

"That school is what we call a multi-grade school, which means that it's quite small. So, it means that some classes are amalgamated. So, grades one and two will have a teacher. Grades three and four will have a teacher. Grades five and six will have a teacher.

"So Ms Greene who was the teacher there, she's still there. She's what we call an itinerant teacher. She will remain there until we get another teacher, because we want her to serve in other areas as well.

"For now, they have three teachers. They also have two aides at the bottom level, at lower primary and they have the principal is the principal teacher who's teaching the pre-school."

Mrs Russell's comments on Friday came one week following the opening of most public schools on August 28.

With some schools on the Family Islands still experiencing a shortage of teachers, Mrs Russell said the ministry is continuing to address this need, which may include the hiring of retired educators.

She said: "We would have engaged 343 teachers, teachers' aides, and, of course, special services like a speech pathologist and we have school psychologists. However, we are still in need of 50 teachers in key areas like mathematics, physical education, science and language arts.

"So what we are doing now is we are engaging our retirees, our supply teachers. They are supporting our efforts and we have already started putting them in the classroom. We are also looking, once we get the budget approved, to employ some of them on a contract basis.

"We're also seeking to address our policy in regard to hiring retirees, but I can't speak too much to that. But we are looking at redoing our policy."