Water crisis forces school to shut classes up to Std II for a week

Pune: The Bishop's School has shut some classes at its campuses located in Kalyaninagar, Camp and Undri for a week. While classes from nursery to standard II have been closed down temporarily, the notice states that the management has taken the decision considering hygiene issues and water shortage in school washrooms.
Principal, chief executive officer and honorary secretary of The Bishop's School, Frank Freese confirmed the decision, "We are facing tremendous water shortage and we have absolutely no facilities to clean the toilets.It is a big problem in all three branches of the school, so I am shutting down some classes only for a week. We can arrange for drinking water, but we really need to keep washrooms clean since it is directly related to students' hygiene."
While he said that he would not take a chance with unclean washrooms in school, Freese added that it may not be much loss to students as they would have got holidays for the Palkhi processions as well as Eid. "They may not lose out on too many working days. Also, by then, we are hoping it rains and water supply gets back to normal," he explained.
The notice that was put up by the school authorities across all three campuses stated: "With the delayed monsoon, our city is a reeling under a water crisis with our institution facing a big shortage of water, especially for use in our washrooms. Therefore bearing in mind the hygienic well-being of our children, the management has decided that children of classes Nursery to class II will not attend school from Monday, June 27 to Wednesday July 6, by when we hope and pray that we have some good rainfall and the condition normalizes."
The school would resume normal classes from July 7.
The notification added that the students will miss out on six working days in school. However, teachers will share details of assignments that are to be completed on a daily basis over the internet. Students are expected to work on the assignments at home so that they are up-to-date with the syllabus upon rejoining school after a week.
Ritesh Kundi, whose child is a lower kindergarten student at one of the campuses, said, "The school is concerned about the hygiene and, for the management, there cannot be anything higher on priority other than students and their well-being. Even at home, we are facing a shortfall, so it is understandable that a school attended by thousands of students would definitely feel the pinch."
Another parent Sachin Joshi, however, stated that the school should have called for a water tanker everyday instead of giving additional holidays.
"I know that the classes that have been shut temporarily do not have a very hectic schedule, yet the school has just begun for the academic year and nursery students have only now got into the habit of going to school. The break will disturb their schedule. I think the school could have asked for water tankers to fulfil the needs but the management would have considered its options before taking the final call."
Meanwhile, classes III to X at the Kalyaninagar, Camp and Undri campuses will function as normal.