THE Ministry of Education has given principals of schools damaged by Hurricane Beryl the authority to decide when they have students resume classes.

Education Minister Fayval Williams on Wednesday reiterated that some schools will not be ready to accept all students come September 2 when the new school year begins and the principals of these institutions will be allowed to determine how students return.

Addressing a post-Cabinet media briefing Williams said there are 107 badly damaged schools, placed in the priority one category, which will not be ready for reopening next week, with one school — the badly damaged Munro College — having to delay reopening by a week.

“We’re making arrangements to have a tent, in other areas in other schools we’re using church hall or a building that’s close by to give us that time to get the school completely ready. So we’re asking all our stakeholders to work with us as we move through this situation,” said Williams.

In terms of the other schools categorised as priority two, which are moderately damaged; and priority three with minor damage, Williams said these institutions — 139 and 116, respectively — can be repaired while school is in session.

“So traditionally our high school’s would’ve staggered children coming back into school. So not everybody is back on day one or even day two or day three. Primary schools, generally all students come back at the same time, but here again, we’ve said to principals in the priority one group that you have the agency to look at your context and determine how children come back to school. And I know our principals are doing that.

“We were on a call with them yesterday, and based on the report that they gave, you could tell that they were on top of things in their particular school and would do whatever is necessary to ensure the children come back in an orderly way,” added Williams.

She pointed out that the cost to repair the 362 schools damaged by the passage of Beryl has now swelled to over $3 billion.

According to Williams, the increased price tag, up from the $2.7 billion originally projected, is due to the more in-depth assessments that were done for Beryl-damaged schools.

“We have a better assessment now than we did right after the hurricane. And so we have to present the case to the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service and on our side, we have to be efficient with the funds that we have that were already allocated to us, because we know it’s an additional burden on the national budget as a result of the hurricane,” said Williams.

She thanked stakeholders, particularly contractors, for rallying together and working overtime to quickly effect repairs to the severely damaged schools.

“I want to say a big thank you to all our contractors who have been working. There are about 45 different contractors across the 107 schools. We had a very narrow window in which to effect these repairs. If you recall, the hurricane hit us on July 3rd, school is to open September 2nd, so that’s about eight weeks or so to get things in gear, something that we have never done before, but based on these contractors just rallying to the task and our building officers, our regional directors, everyone, we are at a good place today looking at the start of school for September 2nd. I’m not going to say that everything is perfect, but we are encouraged by what we’re seeing,” said Williams.

“The contractors are out there and they are pushing. They know the September 2nd deadline and they are really, really pushing to ensure that they complete the work. Some of them have even put in double shifts. They’ve worked on weekends, they’ve worked well into the nights to get the schools up and ready for September 2nd. Will the schools be at 100? Maybe not. But they’re saying what’s left to be done will not impact the opening of school,” Williams added.