Cleopatra Murphy

Freeport News Reporter

cleopatra@nasguard.com

The government allocated some $600,000 for repairs to government schools on the island and work has been progressing rapidly for two schools in West Grand Bahama.

Repairs at Eight Mile Rock High School are 60 percent completed, according to outgoing principal Dwayne Higgins, and at Holmes Rock Primary School repairs have been completed.

"The contractor assures me that at least by the opening of school everything should be completed," Higgins said about repairs at Eight Mile Rock High School.

Higgins said work being done at the school includes the installation of air conditioning units and cabinets, refurbishment of some rooms and painting of the school.

"It's well on the way. It's not 100 percent complete yet, but it should be by the time the students get back here," he said.

Higgins said the work presently being done was necessary, noting that the air conditioning units had posed a particular problem during the last semester as they had been failing frequently.

"Fortunately now they have put a few in the computer labs and in the library so it's a little more comfortable and things can get done a lot more better," he said. "We have one or two rooms that have been transformed so that we can manage the school a whole lot better and quite a number of louvers had been broken out and they have all been repaired now."

Higgins said the state of the bathrooms at the school had been a concern since last year and they are now being taken care of.

"We still believe that a new bathroom block is necessary, but at least for the time being, the repair work that's being done it's going to be very good because last year we were only able to use one set of the bathrooms. We closed the other ones because they just weren't working and now hopefully with school reopening they will have all of the bathrooms to use and that's definitely going to work better for the flow of school," he said.

Over at the much smaller Holmes Rock Primary School campus, principal Leslie Newton said the administration and staff are ready to accept its students in September.

"Repairs are finished and we are ready to open," she said.

The principal said the school only needed minor repairs, which consisted of light construction and electrical work that have been performed.

She said the staff is now just waiting for the new semester to begin.

"As usual the staff at Holmes Rock Primary School always looks forward to giving our best to our students, so all we are going to do is aim for the stars," Newton said.

She said the school is the best on the island and is made up of the best staff that always does its best.