President of the WITU Claire Elshot told SMN News that the teachers invited her to the school after they met with the management of the school on Friday. According to Elshot, the school recently installed a fingerprint scanner that will register all the teachers' time of entry and departure from the institution. Elshot said teachers were told that they are compelled to use the fingerprint scanner and those that refuse to do so can consider their job on the line. Other issues facing several teachers is the lack of working and residency permits and their pension plan.
The teachers of the St. Maarten Academy (PSVE) were planning to take action Monday morning when the school board refused to allow them to meet with their union representative during the recess period. Elshot said she advised the two board members via email on Sunday that her members invited her to the school on Monday and she was seeking their permission to meet with the teachers during the recess at the school. Elshot said she was given permission from one of the board members on Sunday but later the other board member emailed her informing her that the school would make the premises available to them after 3:30pm since they did not want to disrupt classes during the day. However, an agreement was reached between the union and the school board and Elshot was allowed to meet with the teachers during the recess in one of the classrooms. That meeting was disrupted at the end of the recess since the classroom was needed for classes to resume. Elshot then moved to the staff room where she continued her meeting with the teachers that were free. Elshot further explained that she will be drafting a letter to send to the school board since the union and teachers need clarity on several issues. The unionist said some of her members checked out the legality of the use of a fingerprint scanner in schools and it's illegal. My members need clarity and there is a lot of vagueness that has to be explained." Elshot said.
President of the St. Maarten Academy School Board Alstain Van Dyke Bell said in an invited comment that the equipment that was installed on Friday at the PSVE section has been in operation since August at the academic section. Van Dyke Bell said the equipment is to register the teacher's time sheet. "The equipment we have at the Academy is like the one that is installed at the Parliament Building where the Parliamentarians place their finger on the machine to open the door. At the Academy, teachers have to scan their finger so that the system recognizes the teacher and registers his or her timesheet. The Board of the St. Maarten Academy implemented the new feature when they realized that teachers were committing forgery when they were writing in their own time sheet. Can you imagine when we checked the time sheet at 9am in the morning you had teachers who already filled in their time sheet for that day indicating they left at 1:30pm, and when you check at the school, the teacher left the school already. Our intention is to have an accurate time sheet and to make sure the teachers get paid for the hours they work. We have no intention to distribute the information to third parties and besides that the machine is only set up to register each teachers' timesheet." Van Dyke Bell further explained that the school is busy seeking legal advice to see if the use of the fingerprint scanner is against the law. Bell said that the union has expressed concerns on the legality and use of such equipment to monitor teachers.
When asked about the working and residency permits for foreign teachers, Bell said that the school is like every other company or individual who files for the labor and residency permits. "We submitted the request at the labor Ministry for the working permit and we have to wait on them to grant us the permit. As a school, we check on the applications time and again to see how far is the process but that is all we can do. We also do the same for the residency permit at the justice ministry and follow the same procedures," Van Dyke Bell said.
