PLP: Lack Of Repair At School Is ‘Reprehensible’
“The PLP finds it reprehensible that the lack of repair and maintenance at T.N. Tatem Middle School has caused students to lose a day’s education today due to teachers taking necessary moves to protect their health,” the PLP said.
The statement follows after the closure of the school yesterday, with teachers not reporting to work after ongoing complaints about the condition of the school and the problems with mould.
Speaking late yesterday, Minister of Education Wayne Scott said, “I wish to advise the public and parents of students attending T.N. Tatem Middle School that members of the Ministry of Education administration team have met regularly with teachers and staff to address facility challenges and to begin planning a way forward to improve conditions at the school.
“We recognize that the situation at T.N. Tatem has been the cause of distress for teachers and parents. We share their concerns. The health and safety of the students and staff at TN Tatem has been our primary focus.”
The statement from the PLP said, “The PLP finds it reprehensible that the lack of repair and maintenance at T.N. Tatem Middle School has caused students to lose a day’s education today due to teachers taking necessary moves to protect their health. This, in addition to other work stoppages during this term, is unacceptable.
“The One Bermuda Alliance government is clearly not tuned in to the needs of this facility. The teachers have repeatedly voiced their distress, as recently as November 17th , and these considerable concerns continue to fall on deaf ears. When will the Minister of Education, Mr. Wayne Scott, listen? When will the Minister of Public Works, Craig Cannonier, listen?
“The OBA never fails to find funding for every project that shows their government in a good light internationally. Disappointingly, when it comes to providing dollars for school maintenance that will benefit Bermudian students, there is no money to be found.
Shadow Minister of Education Lovitta Foggo JP, MP expresses the following: “We call on both Ministers to address these issues, complete with a plan and timeline that will complete these repairs. Public school students and teachers deserve safe and healthy schools to function in.”
“The PLP believes no child should risk their health to receive an education. No teacher should have to go to such drastic measures to force the government to execute their duty of care.”
Why are W&E not maintain the buildings, Union leader needs to kick their butts for not getting jobs done and letting Bermuda and Bermudian children down.
This has nothing to do with political party, but all to do with the efficiency of the civil service workers.
GET IT DONE, DO IT RIGHT AND STOP LETTING US THE PEOPLE DOWN.
There’s no money to repair the schools, you just dont get it, money dont grow on trees.
LMFAO
Now why might that be?
LMAO maybe if your party didnt spent it all we would have some. What dont you get.
Thanks to Eugene Cox prior to 2005 Bermuda had money and little debt. That changed and then the PLP had no money either to maintain schools, the causeway, the airport and a host of other Government infrastructures so they created the “adopt a school” to have the private sector pay for the maintenance. What happened to that? Have the adoptees stopped adopting? Nothing is new, Bermuda is effectively broke so PLP come up with solutions as you created today’s problems.
Presumably all public schools were in tip-top condition having been maintained impeccably under the previous administration? Clearly, the issues which are arising now can only have occurred in the past couple of years.
Some people don’t get sarcasm…you are better off saying exactly what you think.
It would be interesting to see the repair and maintenance records for T.N. Tatem Middle School while the PLP were in power. The people cannot be tricked. Eight hundred million unaccounted for and nothing to show for it. All these chickens coming home to roost are the PLP’s fault.
Or the $800K duplicate payment to 360! Still not found- PLP must think all of us are stupid.
Seriously trying to blame the PLP for this? Stop it
Fill in the blanks:
This Government has only a very small amount of money to spend because the PLP _ _ _ _ _ it all.
Dont need to try
Actually in the House, during the Summer session, a PLP MP acknowledged that the buildings haven’t been maintained properly for years, not just the last 4 years.
Buildings don’t fall into such disrepair over a short period of time.
So it is time for the OBA to buck the trend.
I wonder how long these repairs have been pending.
I work in the Bda public system. Every Government in power has fundamentally and unequivocally neglected our public education system for as long as anyone cares to remember. Our buildings falling apart, our literacy rates rock bottom, and still it has just become something for political parties to use in their ‘tit for tat’ arena, while our children’s future becomes more and more predictable.
THERE IS NO SPACE IN EDUCATION FOR POLITICS.
OBA, UBP, PLP… what have any of you ever done for education? But yet you divide the country with this nonsense, showing that votes are far more important than young lives.
You are CORRECT…no room in the house for politics when it comes to our children! They ALL deserve a top notch education system. We are one of the richest countries in the world and we have no excuse to let ANY of our children down!!!
OBA DON’T CARE!!!
PLP/UBP didn’t/don’t either….and what?
Vote UBA ~ United Bermuda Alliance
Can we get some comment from the civil servants responsible for these buildings? Politicians are only hamming up for the camera and will contradict each other as we know.
I do have to wonder why nothing was done over the summer months when the buildings don’t have students in it, i would have thought that the Ministries would have do checks and fixes then, giving schools priorty.
That being said how long has the mold been there? could it have been there since the previous government? (yeah I doubt that but just had to ask) I just feels like some one half assing their job and Government is not following up properly so its gotten to this state.
TL;DR – PLP launches savage attack on the Civil Service responsible for building maintenance.
And what did the PLP do during their 14 years re the school and education.
Blame the OBA.
Next the OBA will be blamed on too much rain and salty water.
I give up.
Well P.L.P. were blamed for de World reccesion.
No OJ the plp were blamed for still spending “our” money (yours and mine) like they had all the money jn the world, DURING the “world recession. But as usual you and yours are just too thick headed to grasp that concept. Keep on trolling tho brutha. Lmao. I guess u really cant fix stupid.
No they are blamed for making the reccesion much worse then it should have been.
The recession reduced revenue by a small amount. The PLP increased spending and debt by a much larger amount, nothing to do with the recession. The debt is home made.
No! The PLP were blamed for MISSUSE and ABUSE of government funds! Get it right before you open your mouth! Take your blinders off, and listen and learn! Just try it…I dare you!
They had it easy because UBP left things in good order and lots of money in the bank. They blew through the money and neglected everything else now OBA get the BS. Bring back UBP.
“But let’s make sure the AC is a grand event while our kids suffer!” OBA government.
“But let’s make sure we’re good while our kids suffer!” PLP government.
Don’t even bother…. It’s always the empty barrels singing AC from the hill tops. Don’t even waste your time explaining…. that’s a mind you will never reach…. the blinds are closed and the lights are off….
SMH
@ Say Whaat?,
“But let’s make sure we spend lavishly on capitol projects and spare no expense. That way people will think we care about them. Don’t worry about money for tomorrow that will be someone or some other govt’s problem” PLP government.
There fixed it for you.
“$25m to fix up schools? Nah, let’s fix up that golf course we’re on the board of. We’ll tell everyone it will cost $4m to start with, and then we’ll have ‘overruns’ and get it up to $25m. Who cares, it’s all borrowed money anyway.”
Guess who.
Your comment is as dumb as a box of rocks!
This is a very unfortunate situation. Education has always been used as a political football with the various political parties essentially pointing the finger at each other.
Now the PLP chimes in….
Dear PLP, these issues didn’t start to happen in the past few years. These issues stemmed from many, many years of neglect. You are equally to blame as you did nothing during your tenure as Government.
Dear OBA, you are the Government. Do something. Resist the temptation to point fingers at the past administration. They were voted out, and you were voted in.
And they will be voted out next time, so enjoy ya Friends and Family benefits while it lasts.
You better read the commission findings, so far, to see what ‘friends and family’ really means.
If the PLP gets in it will be far worse
You know what I find funny about all of this, is that u can take 70 million out of education to fund the America’s Cup, (an event only watched by elitist, and not by millions is the lie they use) but parents are being asked to provide paper and school supplies and now this. I agree a lot of these things were happening during the PLP but not on a large scale. I remember when I was in school which was the time of the PLP, the issues we had were like no soap or paper in the bathrooms small stuff like that, but not toxic mould or conditions that make a school unsafe to be in. I cannot recall a time which I may be wrong, where the schools were in deplorable conditions like this. It’s no excuse. That 70 mill could’ve went to improving our schools period no excuses. It’s clear that nobody cares about our children’s education because the public schools have a majority black lower class population(yes I said it. And u all know it’s true). It’s the same thing here in the states where I live, the lower class predominantly black and brown schools have terrible conditions that are purposely ignored and this seems to be the case world wide. I’m not mad at the teachers at all because their duty is to ensure the kids are in a safe environment to learn and clearly this was not the case. I’m sick of the PLP did this and the OBA done that and the problems still fester with NO SOLUTIONS. Stop with the well the PLP screwed the country over in 14 YEARS, NO THEY DIDN’T AND U KNOW THEY DIDNT. IT WAS THE LAST 4YEARS OF THEIR RULE THAT COMES INTO QUESTION WHICH IS CLEAR BY THE INQUIRY OR SHOULD I SAY WITCH HUNT OF EWART BROWN. And if we are going to start pulling up the past and keep using that as a political platform then let’s not stop their, let’s go back when the UBP was in and question on why they changed our school system which has disenfranchised young black boys on the island, has created the influx of expats working jobs that Bermudian’s can do and also cause the anti-social behaviour that came when the middle school system was introduced to us, or the Tucker’s Town incident, or the Old TCD because that went over budget when they rebuilt it back then under the UBP and so many other incidents where they purposely targeted the black community in Bermuda. O and another thing, u didn’t need the PlP or the OBA to divide this country, news flash it’s already BEEN DIVIDED from the start of slavery and segregation so miss me with that load of crap about the PlP caused this. None of the atrocities of slavery and segregation have been properly dealt with to move on from it, that’s y race keeps popping up. And by the way I’m not for any of these political parties for they don’t serve no one but the elite of Bermuda. Now stop the bickering and solve the problems our schools face all together.
Something else better privatised. The day to day cleaning of schools & the annual maintenance. Currently it is quite obvious that these responsibilities are way beyond the capabilities of W&E & its management.
I can tell by this comment that you are a complete fool. How is this W&E fault? They have to get authorized (that word might be too much for you to comprehend) to do any work or project. And for your info, W&E is more than capable to do the work. The question you should be asking your Government is why they didn’t use them and decided to out source the work? Consider asking the ppl in charge before u start blaming the civil servants who serve them.
@ Lol,
“And for your info, W & E is more than capable to do the work”. Sure they have capable people at W & E but the cost and time it takes for them to do anything is the issue.
We don’t get value for money from this dept and others which needs to change. Take the million dollar round-about, the wall/sidewalk in Warwick and on and on. Because of this W & E and other wasteful govt dept’s need to be done away with and the private sector should do the work. I suspect that’s Triangle Drifters point and he’s absolutely right.
All the money is going to America’s cup. Its not w&e they only do what they are told. The America’s cup is the sole agenda. Education has no funds. It falls under education. W&e jus can’t go fix the schools, they need authorization from government ( OBA ) which means funds duh. Wake up and see ( America’s cup)
@ wake up and see,
Is that the best you could manage? Silly me, of course it is!!
laughs, yawns, rubs eyes and turns the page.
Every year it’s the same story…what is the w/e employees doing..? I know what they aren’t doing…none are being released from employment yet there is an absence of tree and road crews…an absence of qualified masons to finish small jobs in a timely fashion…I could go on and on but it’ll be a waste of valuble oxygen…smh
Anyone seen that real nice W&E pickup? How much did that take out of the budget?????Never had a bag of cement in it or been to a job site! LMAO.
One day and that’s reprehensible? How about when I was in school here during PLP years I was guaranteed at least a week and a half off every year due to teacher strikes or other union strikes? And I mean every year.