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And thousands of teachers protesting in Belmopan, meant thousands of students without teachers. In Belize City – no primary schools were closed but they were all operating on skeleton staff. For example at St. Martin’s DePorres Primary School only 8 teachers and 26 students showed up. That was the story all around town. We sampled opinions from a couple parents.

Parent #1,
“They say the teacher went to Belmopan this morning and so I just brought them home. So now I am going to my mother right now to hang a little bit.”

Keith Swift,
“Did you expect they would have been out of school today?”

Parent #1,
“No, when I went there they told there would be no school because the teachers went to Belmopan this morning. I didn’t know. I just went this morning to check.”

Parent #2,
“She is not in school because her teacher is one of the teachers taking part in the demonstration in Belmopan. We found out last night because her teacher sent a note to the parents. It is somewhat inconvenient because she had homework that needed to be handed in, it may be good because if it wasn’t good then maybe we can fine tune the homework.”

Keith Swift,
“Do you support the teachers?”

Parent #1,
“Hmm me nuh know. I don’t know what they are fighting for so I don’t know.”

Parent #2,
“I was a teacher for three months and yes I do support them because they face challenges in the classrooms and they need to be able to let the public know how they feel.”

Chief Education Officer Chris Aird advised school managers yesterday to keep an attendance roster of which teachers didn’t show up and the reason for their absence.