by DONNA SEALY

ALEXANDRA SCHOOL teachers will be out of the classroom again this morning.

This time, president of the Barbados Secondary Teachers' Union (BSTU), Mary Redman, is charging that principal of the Queen Street, Speightstown school, Jeff Broomes, was unwilling to comply with the agreement reached after a two-hour meeting on Monday afternoon.

The aggrieved teachers will meet at the BSTU's Belleville, St Michael headquarters.

Earlier this month, Broomes sent letters to 14 teachers asking them to verify their attendance at a BSTU workshop at Solidarity House, St Michael, on Teachers' Professional Day on October 20.

The letter also stated the teachers would be marked absent since they had not done as the principal requested.

Teachers took industrial action on November 10, protesting the letter and Broomes' behaviour. Broomes however was adamant he would not withdraw the letter, until Monday's agreement.

Redman told the MIDWEEK NATION in a telephone interview yesterday the agreement was that the board would be the one requesting the information that Broomes wanted from the union and it (the union) in turn would provide the information to the board. Broomes was only to hand over a letter of withdrawal and not write the union.

There was to be a simultaneous exchange
of those letters.

"That withdrawal letter had nothing to do with the exchange of information between the board and us," she said.

Redman also said
the teachers were "disappointed, upset and angry" with the letter the union received yesterday morning which bore Broomes' signature and this development was "troublesome to them as a union".

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by this newspaper, stated in part that Broomes' withdrawal of the original letter he sent to 11 teachers was being done simultaneously with their "provision of the requested information".

It also stated that he accepted the commitment of the teachers' representative to "provide me with the requested information on the attendance of the teachers of the Alexandra School at BSTU's Teachers' Professional Day activities".

"With this understanding and consistent with my deep and significant concern for the welfare and interest of the children of this school, I hereby withdraw the letter issued to those teachers who attended the BSTU's activity at Solidarity House on Friday, 20 October, 2006," Broomes said.

Broomes said yesterday as far as he was concerned, the matter was resolved and he had no further comment to make.