IT WAS LATE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER HAROLD WILSON who famously said that “a week is a long time in politics”. The same could just as easily be said of a week of testimony before the Frederick Waterman Commission of Inquiry, which is looking into problems at The Alexandra School.
One week ago, when the inquiry first started, it was principal Jeff Broomes who appeared quite cool, calm and collected as he sat and listened attentively to the gruelling testimony, which seemed at the time to be going mostly in his favour.
Back then, the spotlight had been thrown on the actions of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU)?and, in particular, the behaviour of head of the science department, Amaida Greaves, who allegedly refused to teach classes for an entire term.
The apparent “breach” of the rules was of such a nature that it led Chief Personnel Officer Gail Atkins to conclude that it could have cost Greaves her job had Mary Redman and the BSTU not embarked on industrial action.
But that was week one.
At the end of week two, the tables have significantly turned. It is now principal Broomes’ behaviour that is being held up to public scrutiny and ridicule – uncomfortably so, we might add, since his former secretary Betty Ann Williams took to the witness stand last Tuesday.
She told the commission that after six years of abuse by Broomes, she had simply had enough.
Williams, who retired at the start of the year, also testified that Broomes was known to engage in shouting matches with several senior members of his teaching staff, including Greaves and the head of the English department, Margo Clarke, who came out of a heated meeting with Broomes one day threatening to hit the principal with a piece of 2×4 wood across his head.
Close friend
Equally adversarial, it would seem, was the relationship that developed between the principal and his once close personal friend Keith Simmons, the chairman of the board of management.
During his time in the witness chair, Simmons alleged that a serious conflict of interest had developed at the school owing to the employment of the principal’s cousin Roger Broomes, whose name had come up in relation to a charge of sexual harassment and concerns about disciplinary measures.
“At a board meeting, the principal said, ‘He is my cousin, and as long as I’m working here, he will work here’,” Simmons told the commission.
He noted that at another board meeting, Broomes had said that he would not leave Alexandra, not even “if you offer me a million dollars, I ain’t leaving this school”.
But just like Williams, Simmons concluded that at the end of the day, Broomes should be “separated” from Alexandra, although this appears to be easier said than done.
If it wasn’t, we would expect that by now either the Minister of Education or the Prime Minister would have been able to take action, and the country would not have been subjected to this costly commission of inquiry.
The exercise is costly not only in terms of the reputations that are now publicly being dragged through the mud but also in terms of the overall financial cost of having a battery of high powered attorneys, officials and witnesses assemble daily for this unbelievable spectacle, which could possibly go on until August 31.