A messy dispute between janitors and the Education Department created chaos and a temporary classroom shortage at Northlands Secondary.

The Royal Gazette understands a section of the old Woodlands School building on Mount Hill, Pembroke -- which Northlands has been using for mathematics and science classes -- had not been cleaned since October and was unusable.

Janitors, who were responsible for cleaning Northlands main buildings, reportedly requested more pay for the "extra work''.

And both Northlands principal Carol Bassett and PTA president Wayne Butterfield complained to the Ministry about the situation.

Sources told The Royal Gazette Mrs. Bassett had held several meetings with Education Department officials and she fired a letter off to the Ministry as recently as Tuesday about the matter.

"The floors have not been cleaned and there's trash left from before the Christmas break,'' one concerned teacher, who did not wish to be identified, said. "It is just a very unhealthy state, particularly with health and safety being so important to schools.'' The teacher added that as a result of state of the Woodlands site, confusion over class locations had been caused among teachers and students.

When contacted Mrs. Bassett said: "It is a grave concern.'' But she said she preferred further comment to come from her supervisor, senior education officer Vivlyn Cooper.

Mrs. Cooper confirmed she was aware of the situation.

She explained that there were no provisions made in Education's budget for overtime required by the regular janitors.

"That's where the misunderstanding came in,'' Mrs. Cooper said.

She added that Education's senior manager of Human Resources Raymond Latter, who is responsible for janitorial services, had assured her that the matter would be taken care of.

"I was assured that someone would be contracted to clean the classrooms,'' Mrs. Cooper said. "Arrangements were made prior to our December closure so that when we returned, they would have been cleaned.

"But apparently that did not transpire. Hopefully, the matter has been cleared up by now.'' Mr. Latter confirmed that Education had hired someone else to clean the classrooms.

But he said there was a delay in cleaning some of the rooms after Christmas because the person was unable to obtain some of the keys.

"But now he has all of them.'' Mr. Latter also explained the area of the school used by Northlands had been "shut off'' since Woodlands closed as a school for special students in June, 1995.