A.F. Adderley opens Monday

A.F. Adderley opens Monday

Teachers and students of A.F. Adderley Junior high school will return to the classroom Monday, a top education official confirmed Friday.

Nearly one week after teachers at the A. F. Adderley Junior high school protested the poor conditions of the school’s campus, Education Director Marcellus Taylor said works have been advanced enough to allow teachers and students to return to the campus next week.

While the state of the school is not ideal with the ongoing construction, Taylor said, he believes the students and staff are not in harm’s way.

“It’s just one of these things that happens,” Taylor said.

“You have an inconvenience for a period of time but in another few weeks, maybe another couple months, the school campus will be completely redesigned.

“And so all we are saying is that our number one goal in education is to educate the students. There are no health challenges, there are no safety concerns …”

Taylor said his department partnered with another government agency to ensure the school is fit for learning, but more importantly, safe.

“We brought in the Ministry of Labour for them to bring in their experts to assess it to see if it was a safe enough work site,” he said.

“They indicated that it is and so we expect that the teachers will teach. The classrooms where they are assigned are not under construction, those classrooms are all finished and all fine.”