THE NATIONAL UNION of Public Workers (NUPW) is in full support of principal of the Parkinson Memorial Secondary School Jeff Broomes, who has been coming under resistance from some of his teachers who say they are not satisfied with his management style.
Union president Walter Maloney said today he had no intention of allowing the Parkinson impasse to take on a complexion of the Alexandra School controversy which ended in a Commission of Inquiry that led to Broomes’ transfer to Parkinson.
Maloney said the Alexandra impasse was handled “in a very bad way”.
“I think it caused a lot of pain and suffering to the students, parents and teachers and Brother Broomes. I don’t think there is need for this; if there is a grievance at Parkinson Memorial the right thing to do is that there is a grievance procedure, let it take its natural course and let us deal with the issues at that level”.
Maloney was speaking at a Press briefing this morning at the NUPW Headquarters where Broomes responded to the charges made by the teachers.
Holding up a copy of the Education Act and Regulations, Broomes defended his involvement in the preparation of the school’s timetable, which he said was in the purview of the principal. He said this was done with the help of three other teachers, one of whom later dropped out.
Broome also disputed that no work was done on the timetable in the vacation and lamented that work started previously was shunned and a new timetable constructed while he was on sick leave.
“They changed the structure totally, eliminating the computer basic course, eliminating religious education in second form, eliminating the activities programme to help the Ministry’s initiative of the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence; eliminating things like community service for returning fifth formers and that disappointed me; that upset met me. . . . . I came back to school and expressed my concerns. I heard that I changed things . . . we did a curriculum design in 2013 [that projected the work in the school until 2016] and every single member of staff had an opportunity for input.” (JS)
