BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AFTER almost one week of no school due to the outcry of a possible contamination, the Basseterre High School has somewhat returned to a state of normalcy, but at different locations.
School resumed this morning (Nov. 26) with the students using makeshift classes at the Warner Park Stadium and the Old Girl's School, both located on Victoria Road.
First form students are being taught under canopy and in rooms at the football stadium, second and fourth form students in the cricket stadium, third for students in Netball City while fifth former are being housed at the Old Girl's School.
A temporary office space has been put in place and also a lunch room for school meal distribution.
End of term exams have been cancelled but the Washington Archibald High School has made provisions for the fifth form science students to use one of their labs during school hours to assist them with getting their School Based Assessments SBA) done.
On Friday (Nov. 23), the Ministry of Education and the teachers at the institution had reached an agreement on alternatives until the laboratory issue had been fully sorted, while the parents of the students were updated on the contamination issue and the intention of relocating the classes in a PTA meeting held on Saturday (Nov. 24).
At the Saturday meeting, parents were given an account of the contamination issue, the efforts made to have the situation addressed, the developments over the last week (Nov. 19-23) when the teachers staged their sit-in, and the decision to have classes relocated.
The parents however made it clear that they had fully supported the teacher's decision to stage a sit-in while bringing to the fore a number of problems their children had been experiencing, which they believe is as a result of the contamination.
Some also notified the teachers that their children would not be returning to school for the remainder of the school year, while others spoke at length about some of the illnesses that fell on their children over the past couple of months.
This relocation comes after one week of sit-ins by the teachers, who had taken action when promises made by the Ministry of Education to have the school's possible contamination issue dealt with did not bear fruit.
The school has been dealing with the issue for almost two years and experts from the Trinidad-based Caribbean Industrial Research Institution (CARIRI) failed to show up at the school by Friday, November 16 to conduct tests as promised by the Education Ministry.
News of the contamination went viral over the weekend of November 17-18 and the issue, since then, has been the 'talk of the town' as persons in the school and on the street became concerned and constantly questioned what the Ministries of Education and Health were planning to do to have the issue put to rest.
The teacher's staged a sit-in the following Monday (Nov. 19) and demanded that recommendations made by Dr. Whittaker, who had conducted tests at the school's labs in March of this year, were implemented.
They expressed their concerns over the possibility that the environment was unsafe and was making both students and teachers sick. They had declared that they would not be holding classes until the issue was properly addressed.
However, the Wednesday after the sit-ins were staged, the experts showed up and tested the school's labs for a number of gases which revealed that the levels within the school were normal and should not be harmful to anyone.
They were however unable to state whether any biological agents and respiratory particulates were present in the air, and samples were sent to the United States for analysis with results expected in three weeks time.
The school's relocation would continue for the remainder of the school term which ends on December 7. School officials are optimistic that when the new term begins the contamination issue would have been fully sorted and put to rest, and the school would be deemed safe for all.
