PTA calls for environmental checks and industrial cleaning at Luther Thorne Memorial Primary

Outraged parents and guardians have demanded a full check-up – and complete clean-up – of the Luther Thorne Memorial Primary School as they painted a picture of a campus overrun by vermin.

In the latest case in what has become a familiar pattern of smouldering complaints leading to heated protests at a public school where dust, pests or other environmental concerns have disrupted learning, visibly upset parents on Wednesday presented a litany of woes to reporters at the Wildey Road, St Michael school’s gates.

They described a mouldy school building festered by rats, cockroaches, birds and lizards – and the mess they left behind. They called for an environmental assessment to be done, its findings shared with teachers and parents, and an urgent cleaning of the school.

The parents said they were disgusted and appalled to learn of the environmental and structural conditions there, only after protest actions among teachers.

Head of the school’s PTA, Nathaniel Boyce, said he had a one-on-one discussion with Deputy Chief Education Officer Joy Adamson who assured him that top education officials would meet at the school on Thursday, and the problems would be addressed.

He said: “She gave me her word that she is going to take action; so we’re hoping that we can see something happening between now and next week going into vacation time. When parents get involved, people tend to listen because they think that teachers just want to kick up or don’t want to work, which is far from the truth.

“We don’t want to get into all that talk about the ministry having no money; we just want to hear that they are going to do something. We don’t want a new school but we want to be in a safe and comfortable environment along with the students.”

Boyce urged an immediate industrial cleaning after school hours or during the weekend as he backed calls for an environmental test to be conducted.

In a statement, the ministry said environmental hygienist Ian Weekes visited the school to begin preliminary environmental tests. It confirmed that ministry officials are scheduled to meet with teachers at 1 p.m. on Thursday.

In the meantime, classes are to continue as usual with adequate supervision of the children, the ministry said.

On Tuesday, several teachers reported for duty at the school at break time, after 10:30 a.m. Amid confusion among parents over whether the school was closed, some went to the school to collect their children just as the teachers began to show up. Last month classes were also disrupted when teachers staged a sick out.

The parent-teacher association held a virtual emergency meeting on Tuesday night where parents were told of environmental and structural issues plaguing the school for more than ten years.

They were astonished to hear the school had a mould, rat and cockroach infestation, they told reporters.

What made the situation worse, they said, was the fact that they only found out because of the teachers’ industrial action. They slammed the top brass of the Ministry of Education for poor communication and for allowing classes to continue under the current conditions.

Children were repeatedly falling ill with symptoms such as vomiting, rash, diarrhoea, red eye, stomach pain and fever, the parents said. They queried whether these ailments were linked to the apparent environmental problems.

Boyce, a teacher at the school, said the issues were not new and were reported to the Ministry of Education on multiple occasions.

“We have reached out on more than one occasion to the ministry,” he said. “It goes through a process. We have to go through the principal then [the issues] go to the ministry. We have sent off correspondence to our unions, so they’re also aware of it as well as the ministry. But at some point, teachers will only stand for so much. I am not an engineer but I have common sense; you can see that school needs attention.

“The principal would pass on the information but I don’t know what happens [after that] because sometimes [it seems] reports just fall on the wayside,” he said, adding that in the past “we had rats and mice in school”. “The Ministry of Health came in and they did a test. They came in and they spotted them and they saw the trails of urine and faeces. The [current] situation is not as bad as it was before but things can fester.”

Dead rodents and droppings were spotted on the school compound, particularly in cupboards, Boyce reported. Cockroaches and birds were living in the ceilings and there were also lizard droppings, and mould was spotted in various areas of the building, which was made out of limestone and retained moisture, he added.

As it relates to the structural issues, a parent said there were gaping holes in classrooms where exposed steel was blown, the roof was leaking, the fencing at the rear of the school was broken down, there were plumbing issues and the door seals were crumbling.

On Wednesday, for the second consecutive day, teachers reported that they would be late. Several parents came to collect their children.

The school has more than 400 students. About half of the student body did not show up on Wednesday.

Tahira Hurdle, the mother of a six-year-old girl, said that her child was recently transferred to the school and had she known about the situation, she would not have made the move.

She said: “I feel really disgusted and I have made a decision as a parent to keep my child home because I don’t have her living in these conditions at home so I most definitely would not want her to be under these conditions at school.

“I feel the ministry needs to do what they know needs to be done to make sure that our children are in a safe and clean environment. Children can’t be going to school with rats and roaches and God knows what else is in there. [This] is not good enough.”

Mark Boyce, whose son is in Infants A, said his child has been constantly falling ill with fever.

“From the time my son came to this school last year, he has been constantly sick, “ he told reporters. “All this time I have been trying to figure out why my son keeps getting sick all the time and it was only last [Tuesday] night I realised why at the PTA meeting.

“It is disgusting to know that all these things are going on in this school and we ain’t know; obviously the teachers can’t tell us anything directly. So it all makes sense now. It’s poor communication from the ministry. When one parent started to describe the symptoms of their child, everybody chimed in and said that that was happening with their child. Children have been delirious with fevers so high that you can fry an egg on the child; the child crying and begging and bawling and you can’t figure out why they are sick.”

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb