Environmental problems at Sharon Primary School in St Thomas have been resolved and operations are returning to normal.
That was confirmed by Minister of Education Sanita Bradshaw yesterday following the unveiling of a mural at St Mary’s Primary School in The City.
“So far, things have settled down well at the Sharon Primary School. We’ve had a couple reports of people not feeling well, but we don’t have anything confirmed in terms of anything connected to any environmental issues,” she confirmed.
The school was closed on September 16 as a result of environmental issues, with several teachers and students complaining of illness. Cleaning and air quality testing were conducted before it was reopened on October 7.
The minister said last week they had engaged the services of an entity to be able to do air quality testing which parents had expressed concern about when she attended a meeting with them.
“We had gotten the all-clear from them, certainly, in the week before school started, but we’re still continuing the air quality testing. So, we’re continuing to monitor the situation because I am mindful that people are not settled in their minds in terms of what the actual cause was.
“However, I want to make sure that once people go back in the environment, if anything is detected that we’re able to act on it as quickly as possible. So, for right now, to the best of my knowledge, things have settled down well at the school,” she said.
At the adjacent Maria Holder Day Nursery, Bradshaw said she had spoken to the principal who had no complaints since the reopening.
“In terms of them going back into school the previous week, she had no reports of any illnesses from the teachers. I think she reported that 91 out of 94 students were present. So, that gave me some assurance that whatever problems there were may have been very specific to the issues the Ministry of Health would have raised,” she said.
However, Bradshaw said they would continue to monitor the situation.
“That is perhaps the best that we can do at this point in time. The Ministry of Health has given some assurances that they’re going to look into the issues raised by the parents on the issue of the air filtration systems, and we will continue to monitor with them the results of the findings of those investigations as well,” she said. (RA)
