Central High showdown - Staff upset at ‘lack of respect’, but chairman not backing down

Representatives from the Education Ministry’s Region Six are expected to meet with disgruntled staff of Central High School in Clarendon today to iron out issues that led to a demonstration by staff outside the gates of the institution on Monday.

Staff members complained about a lack of respect meted out to them as well as how the affairs of the school are being managed by school board chairman Henry Charles Morant.

In a letter obtained by CENTRAL STAR, the issues of concern laid out to the Ministry of Education include the non-payment of teachers who teach in the sixth-form programme.

The long list of issues was presented to Barrington Richardson, regional director for Region Six.

He reassured them that their complaints were on record and said a meeting would be held on Friday. But staff members demanded an earlier meeting, saying they had been suffering since September.

But an unapologetic Morant, who took over as chairman in April 2017, said that the staff’s action forced him to “break his silence”.

“I have tried to endeavour to put structure in place consistent with the FA (Financial Administration) Act and the code overall to ensure that when you gonna expend the taxpayers’ money, it must be done in accordance with the guideline. It’s a structured system of purchase requisition,” he said.

SERIOUS TROUBLE

He said there are some elements who are “hell bent” in continuing things the same way, something he will not do.

“This country is in serious trouble if the Ministry of Education doesn’t find an alternative way to deal with the school system when it comes to public funds. I say this without any apology,” he said.

Morant said he was also approached this year by one of the teachers who is responsible for the sixth-form programme, who he said told him that generally, up to $30,000 is paid out to each teacher by a certain time.

“I didn’t respond to it, I ignored it. But the bottom line, the place was run bad for many years because if they could tell me that from 2011 they have been doing something like that and the region didn’t detect it ,” he said.

A teacher at the school said the money in question is a standard at any high school with a sixth-form programme.

Central High, which accommodates more than 2,000 students, sees the majority on the PATH programme, and, according to one teacher, they are not being adequately fed.

“There is not enough food provided in the canteen to feed these students. What has been happening, some of the students are given lunch from the tuck shop. Because there has been a shortage of products in the tuck shop, students have been receiving dry bun sometimes with no juice. It cannot be right, just can’t be right,” the teacher said.