Today Newspaper St. Maarten

Union wants resolutions for public school teachers

GREAT BAY – President of the Windward Islands Teachers Union Claire Elshot has called for government to give teachers at Public Schools national decrees stipulating their legal position. The union leader says giving out the decrees is necessary because a letter of guarantee from the Executive Council that the positions will not change once the teachers came into the employ of Country St. Maarten was signed by either the Lt. Governor or the Island Secretary.

“As far as I know this letter is not a legal document unless it has the signatures on it and this document does not have any signature. So I am saying that teachers should now be given the document with legal bearing, which is the resolutions,” Elshot said.

Some of the newly appointed school managers were handed their resolutions last week and Elshot wants that expanded to the rest of the teaching corps. Asked further about the appointment of school managers Elshot confirmed that Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport has pledged to appoint Stuart Johnson as Assistant School Manager of the M. Genevieve de Weever School and put him through three years of training that would allow him to become a school manager. Johnson would not have an automatic foot in the door as a school manager as the minister has informed him in a meeting with the union that he will have to apply for a vacant post like anyone else when the time comes at the end of his training.

“I have yet to see this confirmed in black and white, but I am sure that the word of commitment by the minister still stands,” Elshot said.