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PM’s On School: "We Proceed"
posted (July 29, 2020)
And this morning while the PM addressed that all-important question of school, one journalist asked him whether or not August 10th would be the first day of school for his teenaged daughter.

Reporter
"Will you personally be sending your children to school when it reopens?"

Rt. Hon Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"Well, unlike Jules, you don't have a device planted in my house [laughs]. I only have one child that is still school age. One child of school age attending St. Catherine's Academy and certainly she will go back to school as soon as St. Catherine's reopens. But if something absolutely dramatic were to happen we call it off. And of course we make a start but without prejudice of the fact that if it turns out that shortly after we make a start we begin to see community spread as opposed to clusters. We can take care of the clusters by not opening in those areas where the clusters have appeared. But if we begin to see community spread then we have to close again. But I do think it is important, even psychologically that we make a start. Safety first but my God for those kids to be out of school for so long. I don't know what it does to them and what it does to the parents who are not able to count on their kids getting instruction, interacting with their peers, the normal sort of human social intercourse. That can't be good from a mental health point of view. So I repeat that we are determined to make a start recognizing that it may well turn out to be a false start and we have to turn right back and say well we tried but we had to call it off and wait for a more opportune time. But for now we proceed."

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