Some classes suspended

Press, 24 February 1988, Page 9

Some classes suspended

Dirty toilets or lack of toilet paper have forced five Christchurch secondary schools to suspend classes because of the school cleaners’ and caretakers’ strike. Linwood High School and Aranui High School were closed all day yesterday and were joined in the afternoon by Avonside Girls’ High School and Hagley High School. Papanui High School will be partially open today with only Ford 3 and Form 7 pupils asked to attend.

Even they may be asked to stay home tomorrow, because toilet paper stocks would probably run out, said the principal, Mr Paul Hay.

Papanui had had a problem, which Mr Hay believed would be common to all schools, of a minority of pupils stuffing large amounts of paper into toilets to hasten the process.

The majority of secondary schools in Christchurch plan to open today as usual. The list of those closing may not be complete because three or four could not be reached for comment last evening. The situation at Cashmere High School was being assessed “almost hourly,” said the principal, Mr John Murdoch. Pupils there will have the afternoon off in any event, since the teachers will attend a

paid step-work meeting over the State Sector Bill. As chairman of the Christchurch Secondary Principals’ Association, Mr Murdoch said that the strike would be damaging to relations between boards of governors, parents, teachers, and the cleaners and caretakers’ union. “I believe that it is urgent that the Department of Education finds a way to get back to negotiation,” he said. The pay dispute is affecting all State and integrated schools, whose cleaners and caretakers are employed by the department. They have been on strike for two days, and will return to work

today but will maintain a ban on cleaning and servicing toilets.

The union has threatened to “black” schools were others step in to do the cleaning. ,

Only one school, Hillmorton High School, admitted to risking the ban. The chairman of its board of .governors, Mr Ormond Wilson, said he had replaced toilet paper.

“I did it myself, personally. No-one was brought in, no volunteers. It was strictly a board of governors’ decision to keep the school open for the sake of the students,” he said. The board was “very sympathetic” to the union.