The placement of a Temporary Executive Principal at Prospect Primary School, effective today, has been defended by the Ministry of Education as an intervention at a “low performing school”.However, parents are said to be disappointed at the sudden announcement, which was sent home with Prospect students after school on Friday.The school’s public relations officer Terry Flood said a general meeting of parents was planned for later this week to agree on a response.“Anything is optional to parents,” he said. “We can have a sick-out at the school, or whatever protest they feel is necessary.”Last night Government hit back at charges by the Association of School Principals (ASP) that “the Ministry of Education descended out of nowhere on Prospect Primary School without any rationale or documentation to support the action we are taking”.The latest action was not the first time Government has intervened at Prospect Primary during the current school year, a Ministry spokeswoman said.The Ministry has named Terry Cox, an Acting Staff Development Officer, as the executive principal to work alongside existing school principal Shangri-La Durham-Thompson.Ms Cox will report directly to Commissioner of Education Wendy McDonell against whom the ASP said it has filed two official grievances in the last week.The teachers’ organisation has accused the Ministry of Education of springing reforms on the school without notice, and accused Government of breaking a collective bargaining agreement.However, according to the Ministry, the intervention at Prospect was introduced at a meeting last Wednesday with Dr Durham-Thompson and her ASP representatives.The Commissioner was informed on Thursday that the union disagreed with the intervention, and that none of the ASP’s members would take part in it.However, according to the Ministry, the Education Act allows for the Commissioner to step in at a low performing school and that reading level and test scores indicate that Prospect Primary needed support.The invention will “immediately impact student performance”, and appointing an executive principal is” the best method to bring about the change we would like to see”.“In addition to the insertion of the temporary executive principal, the Ministry will also be inserting support for literacy and the curriculum,” the spokeswoman said.“There will also be a set of deliverables framed over a timeline in order to have additional data from which to move forward.”She added: “While the ASP may disagree, we do not hold the view that we now cannot take the steps we deem best to support student performance.”Government said the Commissioner of Education attended Prospect Primary on Friday afternoon the occasion on which the ASP charges that officials “descended on the school” to advise staff, and give students a letter to take home to their parents.Describing the letter as “strange”, Mr Flood said he was unaware of any other occasion that Education officials had intervened at the school this academic year.“Parents are very disappointed with this action,” he said, “particularly because this is a school that’s achieved a lot over the last few years. Standards are up and relationships with parents are up.“We have a family at Prospect, and it’s a neighbourhood school.”He said he had been told that Dr Durham-Thompson would not be at the school today.“The way the Ministry went about things, I felt, was unprofessional, giving a letter to students on the Friday.”Mr Flood said he was unaware of a decline in the school’s performance but added: “There are a few disgruntled teachers, which you have in any school. Dr Durham-Thompson is a no-nonsense person and for her the school’s development is number one.”Asked why the parents of Prospect students had been told of the intervention just days in advance, a Ministry spokeswoman said: “We do not believe that the interventions we had in place up to this point would bring about the required results quickly.”Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons responded: “I think we can all agree with the stated goal of bringing about immediate and positive student outcomes, but surely there must be a better way of addressing this intervention model, which appears to have upset teachers and parents, and generated significant anxiety.“The PTA for Harrington Sound Primary held an emergency meeting when it appeared to them that the school’s popular principal Lisa Clarke-Smith was being shifted to Prospect.“Now we know that was not the case. But I have had calls from significant numbers of distressed individuals. Now the ASP has given a strongly worded protest.”Dr Gibbons criticised the short notice and lack of communication, adding: “I think the Minister should answer to that.”He questioned how long performance problems had been encountered at Prospect Primary, whether a performance plan had been in place there at the start of the academic year, and whether Government had identified other low performing schools.“There is a question of whether the Executive Principal will be able to work with the Existing Principal. That would be difficult in a business environment. From my perspective, the jury is still out.”