– full resumption of school on Monday, says CEO

SCHOOL of the Nations partially opened its doors to students on Wednesday and from all indications, the New Market Street, Georgetown school will have a full opening on Monday.

On a visit to the school on Wednesday, security on patrol was evident and some students were present for classes. Nations Chief Executive Officer, Dr Dexter Phillips, told Guyana Chronicle that following the implementation of a number of security measures, the school has reopened for evening and weekend classes for the time being.

Education Minister Nicolette Henry has said that the Guyana Police Force has deployed police officers to all city schools commencing from Tuesday, following the threats to the school and the shooting of its director, Dr Brian O’ Toole by an unknown person last Sunday.

The decision to beef up security at Nations follows a high-level meeting involving Minister Nicolette Henry and key technical members of her staff with a high-level team from the Guyana Police Force on Tuesday.

The police team was headed by Commissioner Leslie James, who was accompanied by Deputy Commissioner (Operations), Maxine Graham; Assistant Commissioner and ‘A’ Division Commander, Marlon Chapman; and Senior Superintendent and Deputy Crime Chief, Michael Kingston. The meeting was held at the ministry’s Brickdam headquarters.

The commissioner did confirm that investigations are ongoing to determine the level of threat and where they are coming from, but asked that the investigators be allowed to do their work.

James said that the meeting with the minister was cordial and while he would not wish to speak much on it since it was called by the ministry, he did speak on the security aspect of things.

Meanwhile, Minister Henry told Guyana Chronicle that the meeting with her team and the school, as well as the police, was very necessary and that it focused on the safety, security and wellbeing of all teachers and students at the school, and the need for the situation to be returned to normalcy in the shortest possible time.

“Both at the level of government and the Ministry of Education, we have requested support from the police force in terms of providing coverage of all secondary schools in Georgetown at this point in time and it’s neighbouring environs because we would really like to prevent similar occurrences at this particular time. So, we do have police presence at schools beginning today (Tuesday) and there are also patrols to ensure that the safety and security and wellbeing of the teachers and the students are maintained at this point in time,” Minister Henry told the Guyana Chronicle.