Big school repair bill

PETERSFIELD, Westmoreland — It will cost $1 billion each to repair at least two schools in Westmoreland, with many others estimated to cost more than $100 million as Government pushes to fix damage done by last year’s Hurricane Melissa in time for the new school term. “Most of the schools, our bills are above $100 million. Unity [Primary School] is the highest one at $1 billion, but that’s similar to the amount spent for Manning’s [School],” stated Minister of Education Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon.

Across the board, every school that is damaged is being fixed. We started with the ones that are the most damaged. There are some other schools that had less damage that we are also going to be repairing, but we’ve started with those that have the most damage and need the repairs right away,” she added.

During a tour of Petersfield Primary and Infant School on Tuesday, the minister spoke frankly about the reconstruction process, in the parish, noting that tangible progress has been made on the Petersfield project since the start of work in May. “The roof should be in place by next week on most of the blocks. The windows are ordered and are coming in,” stated Morris-Dixon.

While classrooms should be ready for September, construction work will continue as a two-storey administrative block with additional classrooms is slated to be built from the ground up. “There’s also supposed to be a brand-new block of about eight classrooms. Now, that work has not started; that will start in a couple of weeks, but that will not be finished for September.

They’ll be doing that work throughout the term. And so, we’re hoping that in January, we’ll have all of the work completed,” the minister said. She encouraged parents not to hesitate in sending their children back to the classroom.

It’s going to be even better than it was before. Don’t worry, send your children out. It’s going to be a little bit of discomfort continuing in the first term, but the contractors have assured us that they’ll do the work that’s necessary so that when January comes, everything is done,” Morris-Dixon assured.