Teaching resumes at South school

ALMOST two weeks of protest by parents at the Bien Venue Presbyterian School ended yesterday when an MTS security guard was posted at the school.

Speaking to Newsday, secretary of the school’s PTA Hoover Roopan said the security personnel arrived on the compound  around  7.15 am. Roopan voiced satisfaction at the move and added, “parents feel satisfied, teachers are already starting to feel more comfortable and the atmosphere has changed completely now that there is a greater sense of security.” He admitted that the protests had affected the progress of students, and in paticular the work of teachers with SEA students who now have to do extra lessons after school hours and during the lunch break to make up for lost time. Roopan even said that a proposed fund raiser on November 8, had to be postponed because this may take away from the work time of the students, who were affected by the protest action. However, while members of that school’s PTA breathe a sigh of relief at the new development, the situation at the Siparia Senior Secondary School remains the same with teachers refusing to go to their classrooms in protest of a lack of proper security at the school.

Yesterday, teachers at the Siparia school remained in the library after they held a meeting between 8 am and noon with a TTUTA representative and a School Supervisor II. The teachers demanded that there be six and not two security guards on the compound and also asked for a policeman to be stationed at the school. They also asked that the chain fence surrounding the school be replaced by concrete walls. The school’s PTA president Hayden Bennett said an emergency meeting would be held at the school tomorrow at 1.30 pm. Recently, the school had been plagued by student violence and confrontations which forced teachers to take strike action.