Point Fortin parents, students support parallel school system

Parents and students of Point Fortin say they support the Prime Minister’s recent announcement that vaccinated secondary school students from forms four to six will be allowed to return to school physically from October 1.

During a covid19 media conference on Saturday, Dr Rowley said vaccinated students in those forms will have the option to return to school, while unvaccinated students would continue learning online.

When Newsday visited the South West Regional Indoor Sport Arena on Monday, parents and children were supportive of the plan.

Christine Bonaparte took her daughter Leah to be vaccinated on Monday because she recently graduated from Vessigny Secondary School and wants to do sixth-form studies.

She told Newsday, “If students have to get vaccinated to go back to school, it's better she does it than she remains at home and can’t get to come back to school.

“She told me that she wanted to go back to school for form six, so I told her that if you want to go back to school, go and do it (get vaccinated).”

Newsday spoke to Leah, 17, who was excited just before she got her first Pfizer jab. She said it doesn’t matter to her if other students in the classroom are vaccinated or not, once they follow the public health guidelines.

Her message to the vaccine-hesitant was, “Don’t be scared. You are hearing a bunch of stuff, but medicine is trial and error. Not all the time a certain medication will work out for everyone, and not everyone is affected the same way.

“So go and get checked out by the doctor first to make sure that nothing may happen to you, because everyone wants someone to blame everytime something bad happens.”

Curt Fredrick is from Techier Village in Point Fortin and got his Johnson & Johnson jab on Monday. His daughter is a form four student at Holy Name Convent, Point Fortin.

He told Newsday his daughter had gone to be vaccinated already.

“Let parents involve their children to go and take the vaccine to go to school."

But while Fredrick agrees with the PM’s stance to allow vaccinated students to return to school, he admits the PM will have a battle to make it happen.

Lisa Andrews and her daughter Shael David made it a family affair to get vaccinated on Monday. The two said they did their research and decided to get vaccinated together.

While Shael, 21, is at university, she made it her priority to get vaccinated because she wants to have the chance to return to physical learning in the near future.