This past week the eyes of some of our online readers were on the Commission Of Inquiry Into The Alexandra School again.
It was the week when the teacher at the centre of the controversy, Amaida Greaves, testified, describing principal Jeff Broomes as a man with two personalities, who felt some of his teachers were out to get him and who made The Alexandra School a virtual battleground.
However, the story that gripped the attention of readers was that about an exam paper leak.
Physical education teacher Sophia Ifill claimed that part-time PE teacher Roger Broomes leaked examination papers to students on two occasions. She said that on one occasion when she complained to Broomes, he told her it was none of her business and that was what happened in schools in the United States.
Here is what some readers had to say.
Kenneth King: “This is getting crazier by the day, that it’s not funny. That is why I blamed the senior officials for not doing the right thing by exposing this lack of professionalism at a school considered to be one of the leading schools on the island. . . . I think that the board owes the students an apology for not intervening earlier . . . . This should never happen again in our schools if we have a system that works in the interest of our children. That is why we pay taxes.”
Cherylann Hayes: “I have worked at several different school systems in the US and have yet to see it happen. A teacher never sees a standardized test until the day of the test. For the test that I and my department write, we never let the students see it.”
Bajan LL: “To the commentary ‘a teacher never sees a standardized test until the day of the test’, in reference to the US, it couldn’t be further from the truth. As a former (by choice) public school foreign language teacher in the US, I have seen standardized tests, issued by the school district, up to a week or more before the test is to be given. So the opportunity to show the test to students is indeed possible.
“Of course, I have never done so before, as a matter of common sense, protocol and professionalism, but it is possible for a teacher to show students the test or to, as they say, and hence the term ‘teach to the test’.”
There was also a sense of pride felt among online readers as Bajan hurdler Ryan Brathwaite paraded at the London Olympic’s opening ceremony on Friday, with the Barbados Flag held high.
Many expressed “good luck” to our local athletes competing in the Games.
Donna Clarke: “Barbados superstar Ryan Brathwaite!”
Caroline Scott: “Best of luck to all our Bajans who will make us all very proud. Go, Barbados, Go!”
Tennyson Joseph: “Win, lose or draw, Barbados to the world!”
Sammie N Doyle: “Go, Bim, we love you.”
• Carol Martindale is the Nation’s Online Editor. Email carolmartindale@nationnews.com
