Parents protest against major change in school timings

Parents of students at Dadar's VN Sule Guruji English Medium Secondary School and Raja Shivaji Vidyalaya Marathi medium on Saturday protested against a major change in school timings that has disrupted their family schedules.

Till last year, the students attended classes from 9.30am to 3.30pm. However, since the new academic year started on June 16, the school timings have been restructured for various batches from 7.30am to 12.30pm and 12.50pm to 6.20pm.

This was necessitated after the VN Sule school building was vacated and all the students shifted to the Raja Shivaji school building, as a precaution against any accident while a new structure is constructed alongside the VN Sule building.

Parents are unclear about the new building plan. But the Indian Education Society (IES), which manages both the schools, says they were informed about the change as early as November last year and that a notice was issued along with the school results in April.

Some of the parents met representatives of the management on Saturday and it was decided to hold an open house meeting of all the parents to discuss the matter on Thursday. Shradda Jadhav, former mayor, and a local MLA were also present.

Kaka Kadam, one of the parents, said: "The change in timings is not suitable for parents as well as students. Some of the students attending the afternoon batch return home as late as 8pm. Also, there is chaos at the school gate when the morning shift ends and the afternoon batch comes in."

Amol Dhamdhere, vice-president, IES, apologized for the inconvenience caused to the students and said the parents had been invited to meet with the teachers on Thursday and resolve the matter.

"It was decided to vacate the VN Sule school building during the construction of a new building nearby and to conduct all the classes in the Raja Shivaji school building," said Dhamdhere.

"Due to the pressure on space we had to restructure the timings. It will not be possible to hold all the classes at the same time, so we hope that the parents will choose from the options available. Otherwise we may have to conduct classes on the Saturday holiday as well," he said.