Hours after parents of wards studying at the Srimathi Sundaravalli Memorial (SSM) School in Perungalathur and Chrompet took to the roads to protest against the school, the management has labelled them ‘unruly elements’.
The Correspondent K Santhanam further said that he would shut the schools down permanently or transfer control to some other agency if the agitation against the illegal caution deposit demanded by the institution did not stop.
The protests broke out after the school sent a circular to parents on Thursday, demanding that they pay Rs 2 lakh as caution deposit for their wards.
The Correspondent, in this fresh intimation to the parents, fails to even mention why the parents are protesting. The circular read, “Today morning around 9.00 am unruly elements in the guise of parents number to around 75-100 in Chrompet school and 400-500 in Perungalathur school entered the school premises unlawfully. When we tried take the help of the police authorities and government officials who were present on the spot, they only bent upon pacifying them to control the situation, unmindful of the values and ethics of our school. Such elements have also brought in political presence into the school campus (sic)”.
Further claiming that the protests by the parents was endangering the safety of the children, the Correspondent threatened to resort to two options on August 1.
The first was to close the school once and for all, immediately if the law permitted or at the end of the academic year. The second was to transfer the management of both the schools to some other agency.
Angry parents left the premises earlier today after the Chief Educational Officer promised that they wouldn’t have to pay the caution deposit the school had demanded.
“The state government has promised to handle the matter,” one parent tells TNM. “Calling us unruly elements is completely uncalled for. We are all parents, what danger will we cause to children. We wanted a clarification on why exactly we had to pay such an exorbitant amount, but there was no answer from the management. What they have done is keep a knife to our neck and demand that we make a choice in 12 days,” he adds.
The Correspondent failed to listen to reason even when Tambaram MLA S R Raja confronted him.
“He refused to recall the circular and said that what he was doing is lawful. It is clearly illegal. We will do our part by filing a formal complaint,” the MLA told TNM.