#BTEditorial – Still mystery about Springer fiasco

The Springer Memorial Secondary School’s simulation debacle has generated much public discussion and rightly so, due to the trauma, confusion and disgust it caused across the country.

People still find it difficult to understand how a group of highly credentialled and experienced educators could have developed a scenario in which “armed” intruders with their faces covered would rush into the all-girls institution breaking into classrooms and confronting teachers and students, and not expect the mayhem and distress that ensued. 

Vulnerable young ladies, some not yet into the first full month of their transition from primary to secondary school, were forced to confront “crime and violence” without the necessary preparation.

As much as citizens complain about the changing profile of Barbadian society and the increasing level of criminality, the vast majority of our citizens have not been victims of violent crime and have never come face-to-face with an armed robber or crime that put them at risk of serious injury or death.

There are few who will argue against the need to prepare for the possibility of such an occurrence. It was clear that those who created the scenario and made it so life-like for the young ladies of the Government Hill, St Michael secondary school, did not factor in the trauma and possible physical injury that students could face in the attempt to escape the “armed men in ski masks”.

Timing is everything, and Barbadians have not yet recovered from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) fiasco in which parents vehemently rejected what they saw as an intrusive and highly inappropriate set of survey questions that included matters of sexuality and questions about their parents.

For weeks, the Minister of Education and the Chief Education Officer faced calls for their resignations and/or firings over the affair. Apologies were forthcoming from the IDB and the Ministry of Education.

The ire of citizens has barely settled before this latest blow-up which placed the Ministry of Education right back in the firing line.

Interestingly, Springer Memorial has been able to dramatically elevate its reputation in the secondary school system. It has become a school known for high levels of discipline, dominance in a range of sports and athletics, quickly climbing educational achievements, and a dedicated and committed staff, and those who have visited the compound have described it as the cleanest school on the island.

Yesterday’s press briefing staged by the leadership of the Springer Memorial School, the Ministry of Education and representatives of the two major teachers’ unions presented a united front to the public.

However, while the apologies appeared authentic, the explanations plausible, what came over, too, was the attempt to create a wall in which the representatives, particularly from the school were defiant in their efforts not to provide some important pieces of information, despite all the many attempts to elicit the information by members of the media.

The school’s leadership declined to inform the public whether teachers and staff other than the Health and Safety Committee had knowledge of exactly what would be involved in the “Code Orange” alert that signalled an intrusion or gang activity.

Questions by the media about whether real machetes or cutlasses were used in the dramatisation, who were the “actors” involved in the “intrusion”, and whether the school’s head and deputy sanctioned the scenario that scared students, remain unanswered.

It is still very murky about the involvement of the Barbados Police Service, as was first claimed by the school. The fact that terrified students also called the police for help and members of the Special Services Unit arrived on the scene to respond to the intrusion, undermines that earlier claim.

“The Ministry of Education deeply regrets the occurrences at Springer Memorial School as played out,” Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw stated.

The Chief Education Officer has taken the high road, preferring not to publicly attribute blame and describing the events as a teaching moment.

We agree with Dr Archer-Bradshaw. However, we believe there is still not full transparency in this matter and this is a source of concern.