Chai Brady, Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne
Schools are frustrated by the lack of access to timely advice, according to the acting director of a Catholic schools’ body, as the Government has failed to offer the promised 24-hour support principals need.
“Schools can only remain open to in-school teaching if the correct supports and sufficient measures are in place,” according to Alan Hynes of St Senan’s Education Office. “This shambles of a Government are failing on that score.”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Mr Hynes said that the majority of people want to keep schools open, but “principals need to be able to access advice in a timely manner so they’re not left hanging”.
“What’s there isn’t sufficient,” he continued. “Principals were asked back at the start of the school year to be available pretty much on a 24/7 basis to assist in contact tracing. But the support services for principals have not been 24/7.”
Principals do not have an issue working overtime, Mr Hynes said, but “the outrage was being asked to do that when the State… wasn’t willing to put in the resources that would support them in their roles”.
“There has been a lot of frustration,” Mr Hynes said. “Teachers took a bit of a kicking back in January over the delay in reopening, without the context and understanding that the state played a large part by not building sufficient confidence in the education system that the schools are being supported adequately.”
One primary school principal in Co. Meath told The Irish Catholic she was unable to contact the principals’ helpline over the weekend, after a staff member was designated a close contact.
“We had a case here on a Friday evening and I was hoping to get some clarification on it,” Ailish McKeown of Kilskyre NS said. “But the principals’ helpline rang out in the evening, all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Eventually, I was trying Monday morning at eight and half eight, but it was quarter past nine before I got through to them. We were told at the start that the helpline would be 24 hours.”
Another principal, Nicola Roche in Scoil Mhuire Barntown, Co. Wexford, voiced concerns that principals “feel a little bit alone” and questioned the timings of department communications.
“I do feel strongly that some of the communications that have come out through the Department of Education,” Ms Roche said. “For example, they come out on a Friday evening through an email – it’s very difficult on a Friday evening because you feel that you can’t and you shouldn’t contact members of staff to get going on this.”
Not all principals feel let down, however. Jane Brady, Principal of St Colmcille’s NS Gainstown, Co. Westmeath, said that in her experience “things have come together”.
“We had a brush with Covid back in October time and I would have found it difficult,” she said. “But I have to say, my experience is that that would have changed. There is a dedicated line there and any time I’ve ever called it, I’ve got an answer instantly.”