Parents and residents yesterday forced the closure of the Mocha Arcadia Nursery School, following a protest over the appalling conditions their children are enduring and the continuing neglect by authorities.
A crowd of parents, guardians and residents gathered yesterday outside the school, which is located on New Settlers Street, Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara, armed with their placards to plead with the authorities to address their concerns and build a new school for the community.
“For years we protesting for a new school. This new government promised us money to repair the school but it ain’t need repairing. We need a new school,” Roxanne Allen, a parent, proclaimed as the crowd of angry and frustrated women who had gathered agreed.
“The washroom in a terrible state. When the children go in the washroom, you seeing snakes in the washroom. Look at the school yard,” she said, while pointing out that because of the height of the grass, which is not usually cut, snakes and other animals are invading the schoolyard and even the school building sometimes.
“I don’t know if they waiting for a snake to bite someone or something to happen at the school before they take action but we ain’t allowing that. We are going to take action before anything happen because that’s how they does work,” one of the women exclaimed, as the parents explained that they were going to “keep the school closed” until the relevant authorities addressed them and their issues.
Allen lamented that due to the limited amount of space in the school building, the headmistress and those who meet with her are not afforded any privacy. “If the parents go to the headmistress, everybody hearing because she don’t have an office. We don’t even have a kitchen ’cause everything in one and is 96 children in that one building. Yes, 96,” she added.
“The headmistress ain’t got no office and the juice and biscuit on the floor. No cupboard and roaches on everything in the place! Tell me, is that sanitary? Is that right?” she questioned.
Another concerned parent, Mellissa Carl, said teachers are forced to sit between the children because of the lack of personal desks.
“I am 33 years old and that headmistress taught me.
