New Forest Primary and Infant not out of the woods

New Forest Primary and Infant School Principal Sharon Anderson is expressing frustration at the slow pace of repairs at the institution in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which she said is hindering the delivery of lessons.

She said teachers at the Manchester-based school have had to merge some of their classes over the past two months as the roof of a building that houses three classrooms was damaged by the Category 4 hurricane.

This reluctant merger has resulted in lessons being delayed, she told The Gleaner.

“It’s more difficult to execute the curriculum because the children are normally tiered. So you have some [students] who are non-readers going into where the readers are. It’s difficult for the teachers to manipulate that kind of situation, so the curriculum itself is at a standstill in terms of the delivery,” Anderson explained.

“Most of the children who are non-readers, they are active. A duration of a lesson might be 30 minutes, [but] you can’t get them sitting down for 30 minutes,” she added.

According to Anderson, the entire process of fixing the roof has been impacted by missed timelines. She said the contractors, who were engaged by the National Educational Trust (NET), stripped the roof and decked it with plyboard, but work has paused on the building for the last two weeks.

She told The Gleaner that she was informed that they were awaiting the procurement of sheets of zinc to complete the renovation. But she is concerned that the plyboard, which now lies unprotected, will be damaged and further delay the repairs.

“It (plyboard) is now exposed to other elements. The rain is falling and is soaking that kind of material, and the Sun comes out, so sooner or later, it’s going to shrink that kind of material,” she said.

“It’s too much for the children now in terms of the clustering, in terms of the teachers executing the curriculum to its fullest,” she said.

Anderson said her school would be inspected this academic year, and although she had been assured that schools that suffered infrastructure damage would be given grace, she is still concerned about how the academic performance of her students will be judged.

Safety hazard

Further, she said that debris from the repairs remains on the compound – a safety hazard for the more than 500 students who attend the rural school.

Although she has cordoned off the area with the debris, there are teachers on rotation to marshal the area to prevent the children from venturing into the rubble.

“I don’t know if it’s the contractor [who should remove it] or if it is NET who is supposed to send a truck or something to take it up,” she said.

NET Executive Director Latoya Harris-Ghartey told The Gleaner that work on the school is 75 per cent completed.

She noted that work on the school started in August as it was identified late as a priority one school.

Schools classified as priority one were severely affected and given immediate attention to effect repairs in time for school reopening. These schools were assigned to contractors under an emergency contract procurement strategy, the ministry stated in July.

Harris-Ghartey said the delay was because the initial funds allocated for repairs were exhausted, and the ministry had to wait until more monies were regularised in the Supplementary Estimates, which were passed in Parliament last week.

She said payment should be made to the contractor between today and next week for work to be resumed.

“A lot of the contractors spent out of pocket to carry out repairs ahead while we pay when we verify the work,” she said.

The work at the school is expected to be completed by November 7, Harris-Ghartey stated.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com