John Hegarty to take reins as CBS acting principal for a year
FINE Gael councillor John Hegarty is to take the reins as principal of the CBS Secondary School in Wexford for the coming school year after the current principal, Michael McMahon, informed staff of his decision to take a year out back in March.
Having served as vice-principal at the school for the past number of years, Cllr Hegarty was the man to step into the breach and he does so facing perhaps one of the most uncertain starts to a school year in recent memory in the wake of Covid-19. It was with this in mind that he opted not to seek the mayoralty of Wexford this year, instead opting to nominate Cllr Leonard Kelly.
‘Yes that was certainly part of that decision,’ Cllr Hegarty said. ‘There was no way I could do both at the moment. Mick had informed us of his decision to take a year’s leave of absence and then a few days later the country entered lockdown.’
‘Ordinarily, I’d be looking forward to the challenge. It’s a great opportunity to take it on and see how it all works and it would be something I’d relish and look forward to. It’s a great school and there’s lots working well.
‘But the other side of it is that nobody knows exactly what kind of environment we’ll be going back to in September. With Covid and social distancing, it’s very hard to make plans.’
While everything is very much still up in the air, Cllr Hegarty remains hopeful that students will return to school as normal in September. There’s a ways to go before that can happen though.
‘Schools just won’t work with 2m social distancing,’ he said. ‘Our school was built for 580 to 600 students and we currently have 670. Now, there’s plenty of space and we can cater for that, but we couldn’t cater for social distancing of 2m. I could see how primary schools will work a bit easier. The children would be in the same room with the same teacher all day. In secondary school that’s just not an option and lads are moving around all day.
‘The only thing is, it’s not something we have to solve ourselves. All schools are in the same boat. Difficult decisions had to be made in terms of this year’s Leaving Cert, etc, and there’s been good support from the Department and the unions, so hopefully we can find a solution for how the coming school year will work too,’ he said.