Bishops College Principal in dilemma over space for students

by Eldonte Samuel

With the date for re-opening of schools expected to be delayed, the principal of Bishops College Kingstown (BCK), Insa Duncan’s biggest concern however, is finding a space to relocate her students while the secondary school remains under major repairs.

BCK was one of the two schools in Kingstown which sustained considerable damage during the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 1, the other being St Joseph Convent (SJCK), whose repairs are not as extensive.

The Dominica construction company, ADS Construction, is leading repairs at BCK, while BRAGSA- the Roads, Buildings and General Services Authority- is undertaking repairs at SJCK. However, the renovations at that school are also not expected to be completed by September 2, Deputy Principal, Ronda Sutherland told SEARCHLIGHT.

As of Wednesday, August 28, at SJCK, the construction crew was in the process of adding galvanise to the main hall /building. The laboratory and a few rooms were wrecked during Beryl’s passing, and though they are on track to be completed, they will need rewiring along with other electrical work, and then the rooms will need to be cleaned.

Sutherland said the contractor promised that the work would be finished between yesterday (Thursday) and today (Friday), but challenged by rain and time, she is certain that “We are not going to be ready for Monday.”

Sutherland said she is awaiting word from the Ministry of Education regarding the next steps, as some schools are not yet visually ready to be opened.

Work at Bishops College began on Monday, August 12, 2024, and Project Manager, Roy Stephens shared that they are ensuring to make the school more resilient to future disasters. This required them scrapping the original plans for a second floor being added on top of the longest building on the compound.

“They changed and said to put a hip roof, so a hip roof will go on everything now.

“We are casting all the rafter foot, then we’ll make a hole, run a length of horizontal steel through them, and then anchor it with a steel bent from the ring beam,” Stephens explained. Additionally, hurricane straps would be installed to reinforce the connection between the rafters and ridge pole, “so it will be much more secure,” Stephens added.

He explained that an engineer tested the columns and found that they needed to be reinforced to bear the weight of an extra floor, and that is why the original plan to go up a floor was scrapped.

Similar to Duncan, Stephens is uncertain as to when construction will be completed but predicted, “We’re looking to finish it sometime in September; the exact date I can’t really say. [There are] a lot of changes. We’re still awaiting certain details from the architect, so hopefully, sometime in September we can deliver this school to the public again.”

Stephens also shared that up to the first week and a half of the project, he had only 12 workers, but from Monday, August 26, his team had more than doubled.

“It’s probably less than a week now since we got about 20 guys, then we hired a couple of new guys yesterday (August 27), so we’re about 26 guys on site right now.”

He is challenged, though, by the availability of workmen during the night shift noting, “we only get like five guys here in the night,” which he believes is because the majority of his crew hails from North Leeward.

“I’m trying to cooperate with the boss to see if we can get at least a bus provided for them guys who are interested in working and coming from far distances so we can get some proper night shifts,” he remarked.