School shutdown, parents demanding urgent meeting

Angry parents, SGB, and Sanco members have prevented of Refentse Primary School teachers and principal from entering the school on Monday morning this week.

They are demanding an urgent meeting to discuss the accusation that the Mamelodi school principal and clerk spent the R5 the parents donate every Friday on themselves and the lack of essential resources to run the school.

The protesters allowed the learners and assistant teachers entry.

“No teacher, including the principal, will be allowed on to the school premises until we sort out governance and school issues here,” said Thatohatsi Mohale, Sanco zonal deputy secretary in Mamelodi.

“We call on the principal, clerk, and officials of the Department of Education to be part of the meeting together with the concerned parents.”

He said the meeting is long overdue because the principal has been preventing it from taking place.

Mohale said the teacher assistants looked after the learners while they waited for the officials of the department.

The protesters accused the principal of holding the school to ransom and causing division at the school.

He said Sanco and the SGB were taking drastic steps to disrupt learning at the school, as they are the primary custodians of the school, voted in by the parents of the learners.

“The principal is accused of not allowing teachers to proceed with the SGB programme, and it is alleged that the school lacks various resources like toilet paper, typewriter printing paper, and liquid soaps,” he added.

Mohale said these are essentials that must be purchased with funds allocated to the school by the Department of Basic Education.

Furthermore, the principal stands accused of not cooperating with the SGB. For example, by refusing to allow the SGB to use the school printer to print the invitations to the urgent meeting to resolve the issues, including spending school money donated by parents.

However, she later printed out “counter letters” informing parents there was no parent meeting.

Mohale said the principal’s negative attitude started immediately after the re-election of the current SGB a few months ago.

“The principal is just an administrator of the school appointed earlier this year in February, and she must not allow herself to be caught up in school politics and pick sides,” lamented Mohale.

The principal is fairly new to this school, but her relationship with the SGB is allegedly very toxic.

“She prefers to do things her own way; she expelled a learner from school without consulting the SGB and the parents,” Mahole claimed.

Mahole said other issues at the school mean the teacher’s assistants do much of the work while the teachers are always absent.

The parents vowed that no school teacher or principal shall enter the school premises until the meeting is held.

A parent, Sfiso Sango, said he was also not aware of the shutdown and feared for his children’s safety at the school as the teachers had been chased away.

Rekord has approached the Department of Education for comment but has not received it at the time of going to press.

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