Hundreds of students sent home
Tuesday as teachers down tools
PHILIPSBURG--Scores of parents were forced to make alternative arrangements for their children on Tuesday when many teachers downed tools in continuation of their protest action that started on Monday.
Hundreds of children at several schools were sent home early in the morning when teachers informed parents that classes had been cancelled. Although school continued normally at a few schools, the situation was a bit chaotic at others.
It could not be ascertained exactly how many schools remained open and how many were closed. However, at St. Dominic Primary and Hillside Christian School, for example, school officials positioned themselves at the entrances of the institutions, telling parents to take their children back home.
The Daily Herald received reports during the day that in some cases young children had been seen walking aimlessly along the road without supervision during the morning hours. Other reports stated that some parents and children had been told there would be no school because there was no electricity.
Some parents who weren’t aware of the teachers’ action dropped off their children and left, and had to return for them later. From around 8:00am, the many children who had been dropped off at St. Dominic Primary huddled along the entrance of the school anxiously awaiting their parents’ return. Similar scenes occurred at many other schools on the Dutch side.
Classes continued as usual at Milton Peters College (MPC), Prins Willem Alexander School and both sections of St. Maarten Academy. However, although Academy teachers remained in class, they supported the protest action by erecting a sign on one of the school gates that read: “We Support WITU.”
An Academy teacher said the educators were cautious about abandoning their classes because of the repercussions they had faced when they had taken a similar action a few years earlier to demand new salary scales.
Although there was school at MPC, representatives of the teaching body were on hand at the demonstration outside the Government Administration Building.
Scores of teachers abandoned classes to protest the delay in the payment of their retroactive salaries and in the implementation of the new salary scales.
Although Education Commissioner Sarah Wescot-Williams informed the Windward Islands Teachers Union (WITU) that the teachers would be paid at the end of this month, the more than 100 teachers who protested yesterday rejected the “promise” to pay and pledged to continue their action today and in coming days until they received their money in their hands.
“We have been waiting too long and we are sick of promises,” one teacher commented. (See related story.)
