TEACHERS ARE TENSE and concerned about their safety, according to several principals of primary schools across the island.

This is after one of their colleagues was recently assaulted by a parent.

"Teachers must be allowed to function and carry out their duties without interference from parents," Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) President Karen Best said yesterday. "If there are difficulties there are ways of settling these differences".

Principal of Hilda Skeene Primary School Ivan Clarke said: "Teachers are a little uptight. They are tense and naturally scared because it's just a matter of time; it [an assault] could happen to one of us.

"We are not immune to anything and so teachers are concerned. It only takes that one child you have to discipline and that one parent to come to the school and take it further," he added.

Clarke, who is also a BUT executive member, said the teachers' union had been asking the Ministry of Education for more than two years for increased security at primary schools, since most were not equipped with guards.

School gates

"We have a gate to keep our children in rather than to keep anybody out. There are a lot of schools which don't have guards. We made a representation last year to [former Ministers of Education] Reginald Farley and Anthony Wood where we discussed the whole idea of safety in school and nothing happened.

"The new minister [Ronald Jones] has not settled in yet but of course we will be discussing it with him," he said.

Meanwhile, Principal of Lawrence T. Gay Primary School, Beverley Parris, said there had been "a handful" of verbal disputes between parents and teachers at that school, but nothing physical had occurred.

Correct channels

"At our Parent-Teacher Association meetings we always mention and emphasise the need to come through the correct channels. There will always be grievances by parents and teachers, but the thing is to know the correct channels to use and use them whenever possible; if not there will always be problems," she said.

President of the Barbados Association of Principals of Public Secondary Schools, Jeff Broomes, who is also the principal of Alexandra School, said he had heard little from secondary school teachers about being confronted by physical abuse from parents, "but I will be very supportive of the action being taken. I think people have to respect the education regulations and the laws".

Only last month while touring primary schools in St Lucy, Minister of Education Ronald Jones called for parents not to frustrate the roles of principals and teachers as they worked within the schools.

"It is disruptive when parents become overly protective and display behaviour that might not be appropriate for children to see.

"We don't want that kind of situation when children see their parents curse teachers, threaten to do harm to teachers and behave in a deviant manner. That is something that will not be tolerated," the minister warned at the time.

*tracymoore@nationnews.com