The North's Minister for Education, Mr Martin McGuinness, has been criticised for allocating additional money to Holy Cross Girls' Primary School to ensure exam results do not suffer as a result of the ongoing dispute.
The Protestant residents' group at the centre of the row, the Concerned Residents of Upper Ardoyne (CRUA), yesterday issued a statement accusing Mr McGuinness of being "sectarian". The group said a nearby Protestant school, Wheatfield Primary School, should also benefit from extra funds.
As the dispute between Catholic parents walking their children to school and loyalist residents entered its seventh week, Mr McGuinness said he wanted to ensure that the disruption caused to pupils taking their 11-plus transfer test in November would not affect their results.
A CRUA spokeswoman yesterday insisted that the residents' call for additional money for Wheatfield School was "not a case of sour grapes".
"We simply want the government to recognise that there are two sets of kids in this equation. Wheatfield children have been highly traumatised by this whole experience and counsellors have been brought into the school. Mr McGuinness must think of everybody involved in this crisis," she added.
Protests at Holy Cross were relatively peaceful yesterday with only a few people blowing whistles as the parents and children passed by.
Meanwhile, the Sinn FΘin MLA for north Belfast, Mr Gerry Kelly, has warned against comparisons between the situation at Holy Cross and what he described as "isolated incidents" of nationalist stone-throwing at school buses ferrying pupils to and from Boys and Girls' Model Schools in north Belfast.
While all attacks on school children were wrong and should cease immediately, unionist politicians were using the stone-throwing incidents to cause a diversion from the appalling stand-off at Holy Cross, Mr Kelly claimed.