Teachers break silence on abuse probe at David Rose Special School

May 31, 2026 News

---

(Kaieteur News) – As the Ministry of Education intensifies its investigation into the alleged mistreatment of special needs learners by two educators at the David Rose Special School for Special Education, a deeper crisis has emerged.

Whistleblower testimonies from inside the institution paint a harrowing picture of a broken system, where severely overworked teachers, operating without nurses, behavioral therapists, or functional infrastructure, are routinely left alone to manage understaffed classrooms under extreme psychological and physical duress.

In immediate response to the public outcry generated by a circulated social media video showing the alleged abuse, the Ministry of Education has announced the urgent installation of a governing board to seize control of the institution’s oversight, prioritising these severe teacher concerns alongside structural accountability measures.

While not excusing the actions captured on film, educators from the David Rose School have broken their silence, describing an environment so volatile and unsupported that they feel structural failure was inevitable.

According to internal sources, the school is operating with severe deficits in specialised personnel, utilising zero permanent nurses or behavioural therapists, while a single occupational therapist visits only two days a week and a speech therapist provides services just once every week or two.

By Guyana Teachers’ Union regulations, the mandatory ratio for special education is six children to one teacher and one teaching aid, yet teachers are left entirely unassisted, with one whistleblower personally managing more than 10 high-needs children and another solely responsible for more than 12 learners.

Furthermore, existing teaching aides are frequently absent or lack appropriate communication skills; one teacher noted her assigned aides was unable to speak or see, rendering them unable to assist in a classroom where the teacher, who is still a student at the University of Guyana, must simultaneously learn sign language while lesson planning, managing journals, completing online registration, and handling individualised instruction.

“… when I say somebody has to help me, it’s one that can’t hear and mute. I can’t even ask her to teach a lesson while I teach the students who need IEP work. I can’t ask her to conduct this lesson here with any amount of children. Break it down and let she teach the other nine children while I teach the other children with the IEP work. I can’t do that. She cannot talk to the children. Oh, man! This is so much frustrating,” a teacher said.

Teachers detailed shocking structural failures that compromise the basic health and safety of both educators and students, noting that the grounds behind the facility remain heavily overgrown because they are not weeded.

“Teachers find snakes in their classroom and could not work. Why they aren’t talking about that?  Ministry is aware of all these issues. They are not addressing it.  The last time the snake issue was raised with the Ministry was sometime last week. This is because a teacher opened her classroom and there were two snakes to greet her. Mind you, the snake bit the cleaner. And the cleaner rolled out, locked back the door,” a teacher detailed.

Only half of the washroom facilities are operational, as plumbers are allegedly paid small sums of ten thousand dollars to patch isolated issues without fixing the underlying drainage crisis, leaving teachers to manually flush malfunctioning toilets and clean up human waste. Additionally, the facility lacks a calming area or decompression section for autistic learners experiencing emotional meltdowns, forcing children to navigate outbursts in overcrowded spaces where they sometimes resort to tearing shirts, while new furniture brought to the school was described as looking like an uncomfortable semi-V. Teachers are also left waiting on basic tools like functional whiteboards, which are desperately needed for students who cannot write and need spaces to scribble.

Due to a lack of support staff, teachers’ contracted hours have expanded into exhaustive 12-hour cycles without respite, forcing some educators who travel from extreme distances to arrive at the school as early as 6:00 AM or 6:30 AM to beat traffic.

Though designated support staff are supposed to remain on duty from 7:00 AM to 4:30 PM to handle early drop-offs and parental meetings, teachers claim these workers are no longer present, forcing educators to assume custody of children the moment they step onto the compound. Teachers reportedly receive no lunch or rest breaks and must eat alongside the learners, frequently spending their own lunchtime physically feeding children who cannot feed themselves.

In the afternoons, teachers remain stuck on school grounds as late as 4:30 PM or 5:30 PM waiting for transport or stranded with abandoned children. The whistleblowers revealed that security personnel have been left guarding children on school property as late as 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM.

Educators expressed immense frustration over rigid bureaucratic requirements that ignore classroom realities, such as being forced to implement a Jamaican curriculum purchased by the State which is explicitly designed for the intellectually impaired but misapplied to autistic children.

“And you’ve got to change up that learner profile to suit the HM on deputy breakdown, because of the Jamaican curriculum, which they adopted and paid for. That does not work for autism children because it’s set plainly for intellectual, impaired children,” a teacher disclosed.

Managing these legally binding plans requires teachers to abandon the rest of the classroom for 5 to 15-minute intervals per child to satisfy criteria covering math, language, and behaviour. While a teacher sits in a corner to administer an individual plan, the remaining nine unassisted special needs children are left largely unsupervised, forcing the teacher to constantly yell across the room to prevent physical fights. To complicate matters, the Ministry now mandates that teachers create entirely separate plans to incorporate Science and Social Studies into these strictly structured documents, despite a daily schedule that strictly limits subjects to half-hour blocks.

Following the initial fallout, further shocking disclosures from the faculty highlight a state of total institutional abandonment, leaving teachers to pay out of pocket to clothe students while navigating physical violence inside unsegregated classrooms. Teachers report that out of a classroom of 10 children, only 5 are fully participating to the level of being able to use the washroom independently, while the remainder require total, hands-on physical care from educators who receive no support from parents or the State.

According to staff, the school regularly admits vulnerable, unassessed children without tracking parental accountability or employment status, and some parents openly tell educators that managing the children is strictly the teacher’s job. The lack of basic provisions frequently forces teachers to dip into their own pockets to buy supplies, describing heartbreaking scenarios where children arrive at school without basic clothing necessities or diapers, forcing teachers to borrow clothing from other students. Teachers noted that some parents have ignored requests for over two terms to simply sew a button on a child’s pants to keep their zipper from riding down.

The continuous trauma of the school environment has triggered severe psychological burnout, leaving many teachers deeply disoriented, physically exhausted, and dreading returning to work each morning.

“But you know that the teachers are overwhelmed and frustrated. We are burnt out. Some teachers are burnt out to a level whereby some of them don’t even want to come to work the next day. You got to deal with all of the children. And then not only that, you got to go home and deal with your children. I have my own children. You know what I did to my son? I was so tired, I snapped at him and I felt so bad.  Remember, when you first come to your family at home, they are expecting the same thing attention you give the children at school,” another angry teacher said.

Teachers have criticised Assistant Chief Education Officer Dr. Keon Chung and the Ministry for failing to provide adequate sensory and protective gear for highly hyperactive and self-harming children, noting that in a classroom of 11 to 12 noise-sensitive autistic children, the Ministry has provided only two or three noise-cancelling earmuffs.

“The like to say, oh I’m holding you teachers accountable. Yeah, we know that but why are you not helping us to have more aides and more assistance in the classroom? Why isn’t the Ministry fighting for us to get accurate furniture? Some of the classes ain’t even got the correct type of furniture…I’m still waiting on my whiteboard table. That was supposed to come for the children who cannot write… That need to scribble. Why aren’t they fighting for Mr. Cheong to bring weighted vests for the children who are ADHD? Why are they not bringing it for the children who are extremely hyper, man? HM and them buy a one-weighted vest. And we have many hyper children in the school. How is that working? One-weighted vest. And one original helmet for the children who self-harm their heads,” one teacher told Kaieteur News.

Kaieteur News understands that when a child begins screaming or experiencing a meltdown, the noise triggers severe distress in the other learners, who begin frantically beating their own ears, forcing teachers to stop instruction to analyse which child is suffering more before rationing out the limited headphones.

This publication was told that the Ministry has purchased only one single weighted vest for hyperactive learners and one single protective helmet for children who violently strike their own heads against surfaces or break glass windows, which teachers state is completely useless given the scale of the student body.

Minister of Education, Sonia Parag, held an emergency meeting on Friday afternoon with Volika Jaikishun, Head of the School Board Secretariat, Dr. Keon Chung, Assistant Chief Education Officer for Special Education Needs and Development, and Tiffanny Harvey, Deputy Chief Education Officer for Administration, to fast-track the establishment of a Board of Governors for the institution. The board will comprise parents, guardians, and experienced special education professionals with the explicit mandate of strengthening daily administrative supervision, establishing institutional accountability, enhancing parental engagement, and safeguarding student welfare metrics.

Minister Parag declared that no child should ever be subjected to such treatment within an environment entrusted with their care, and affirmed that the new board is a direct, immediate intervention to patch the broken operational links between the school administration and the families it serves.

---

• child abuse, David Rose Special School, mistreatment, special needs learners

---