Anxious teachers meet at abandoned Tranquillity

Representatives of the executive of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) yesterday met with teachers of the Tranquillity Government Primary School to decide on suitable alternative accommodations for the school’s population, as they await their new school.

However, the Ministry of Education has stated that construction on the new building will not begin until July. In the meantime, angry parents are no longer willing to continue sending their offspring to the school as the building has been deemed a health hazard, and teachers have since been forced to suspend teaching as the classes are empty. Speaking with Newsday yesterday at TTUTA’s head office in Curepe where the meeting was held, TTUTA president Trevor Oliver said they met with teachers to examine a “series of options in terms of where the teachers can go as an alternative.” The meeting, which began at approximately 9 am, was quite well attended and included principal Marjorie Bailey, and the majority of the teaching staff of the school. TTUTA treasurer Krishnarine Basaw, and third vice president Rouston Job also attended the meeting.

Describing the two and a half hour long meeting as “very solution-oriented and amicable,” Oliver revealed that relocation sites included “a number of union halls in and around Port-of-Spain.”  Adding that they were considering entering into a shift system with a Port-of-Spain school, Oliver said the teachers were anxious to have the children back in school. Concluding that one of the suggested sites was the previous “model school” located on Sackville Street, the problem-plagued Ibis High School, Oliver said he eschewed the idea immediately recalling that they originally had to move students from there because the building was not fit for human habitation. The construction due to begin in July could take anywhere between nine months and a year, he ended.