Parents: We’ll chain ourselves to school gate

Parents of students attending the San Juan Government Primary School are threatening to chain themselves to the gates of the building in Tunapuna, if Education Minister Anthony Garcia does not address the issues at their school.

In an interview yesterday, Joel Scott, president of the school’s PTA said last Friday students had to be locked in the building to play because raw sewer water flooded the area in the basement where they usually recreate.

“We have more than 300 students that are not getting the required education they deserve,” Scott said.

“Thank God on that day it only had half day school. On Monday when the children came out to school, the problem was not rectified. While we were protesting, the San Juan Regional Corporation sent a truck to clean the school while the children were still in the building.

“It is an air-conditioned building, and they could get sick. The foul scent is still there. We are asking for the building to be fumigated and sanitised. If it means we have to lock ourselves to the gates of the building for someone to hear our plight, we are planning to take this step.”

Scott also said students have been cramped in the building since 2013, and no one at the ministry can tell the PTA why repair works at the schools have been stopped.

He said the school is being vandalised by street dwellers and, although the ministry is providing buses from San Juan to Tunapuna, not all five buses show up to transport the students to school.

“The government is paying for five buses, sometimes we only get two or three.

“These buses are usually cramped because sometimes three or four children sit in one seat. Sometimes the infants have to stand up because the bus service is inadequate.

“Parents are totally fed up.”

“Since 2013 the students have been housed in a building in Tunapuna on the Eastern Main Road obliquely opposite Exodus’ pan theatre and the ministry is not saying what is going on with the school,” Scott said.

Several calls to Garcia’s cell phone went unanswered.