School board asks for 48 hours
to address teachers’ concerns
PHILIPSBURG--St Maarten Academy teachers ended their sit-in and returned to the classroom on Tuesday after a fruitful meeting with the Foundation for Academic and Vocational Education on Monday evening.
Windward Islands Teachers Union (WITU) President Claire Elshot said that during the lengthy meeting, Board members asked teachers to give them 48 hours to determine how best to resolve their concerns about tax deductions from their retroactive salary payments. The Board will report back to the teachers on Thursday morning.
During the almost four-hour long meeting on Monday evening, teachers also tabled some of their grievances to the chairlady of the Board Josianne Fleming-Artsen and other board members who were present, Elshot reported Tuesday.
Elshot said teachers also passed a motion saying they want their payslips for their salaries and their retroactive payment separately as was done for Milton Peters College and Sundial School teachers.
In the meantime, although teachers reported for work at Academy PSVE Tuesday, classes were still disrupted as the school was without electricity and water. Students were sent home early. They were also sent home early on Monday after construction workers broke a pipe on the school premises, cutting off the school’s water supply.
Academy teachers began the sit-in last week Friday, insisting on corrections and reimbursement with regard to deductions made from their salaries.
The teachers, several of whom had just participated in a one-week “action for justice” to back demands that they receive their retroactive payment in keeping with new salary scales and to protest what they said was the Government’s lack of respect for teachers, are claiming that in many cases the school board’s actions resulted in as much as 500 guilders being deducted from their salaries than should have been the case, in contravention of an agreement that had been reached with the salaries scale committee.
