Schools’ mission: winning the war

St Catherine schools are bracing for battle as the new academic year beckons in September.

But the test for many of them is not academic, though they are fighting for hearts and minds. The challenge, for some, is also existential.

Naggo Head Primary principal Andria Gibans is already thinking about how to shield her charges from violence.

Her students have not been spared the clutches of violence. A student of hers who recently graduated had suffered six gunshot wounds in 2020.

“Miraculously, he lived but his father died, and I am happy to know that we, as a school, were able to offer that kind of emotional, spiritual, psychosocial support so that at least himself and his mother and his younger brother were able to be back online,” Gibans said in a Gleaner interview.

But schoolchildren haven’t only been the victims of violence. they are the vectors as well.

Constance Curriah, principal of Waterford High, acknowledged that students had begun to display elevated levels of misbehaviour and school violence on their return to classes in January - almost two years after schools had shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic..

Administrators there witnessed surging student involvement in gambling and alcohol abuse, while peers were hypersexualised and experienced mental-health challenges.

Antisocial tendencies were also observed, including among seventh-graders navigating the transition from primary school with more than 30 peers with whom they shared little, if any, history.

“We found that they curse a lot,” she said, noting misconduct that was observed both online and in person.

Tensions spilled over in the classroom, sparking a slew of disagreements, quarrels, and, as students dubbed conflicts, all-out war at the Portmore school.

“We had a lot of fights ... . We didn’t have as much as some other schools, but we had more than we did before COVID,” Curriah said.

The Waterford principal is worried that the culture of conflict in the school’s major source communities, such as Naggo Head, Spanish Town, and Gregory Park, is becoming a way of life in the classroom as well.

The crisis prompted snap conflict-resolution initiatives that were continually altered fortnightly over a period of two months.

Come September, the Region Six school plans to persist with counselling from social workers and the hosting of awareness sessions for parents. Waterford High will also be offering more support for students with mental-health challenges, Curriah said.

Over in Spanish Town, Collington Powell, principal of Friendship Primary, which is located near St John’s Road which has been rocked by gang feuds all year.

Powell said that Friendship has, in the past few months, been investing a lot of time and effort into making the school more welcoming to students, offering them a safe haven from the hostile environments where they live.

“Unfortunately, violence is not uncommon to us in Spanish Town generally, and even more so in these parts,” he said in a Gleaner interview.

Just last month, a body was found along a pathway on which most students traversed by foot to get to school.

“When our students come from the inner-city areas ... they are exposed to violence as well, so we do our very best to ensure that school is that kind of oasis in the desert for the most part,” said Powell.

Friendship Primary’s Guidance Committee, which includes two guidance counsellors and other academic staff, will assist students with coping strategies for the chaos unfolding at home and in their communities.

Gibans said that administrators at Naggo Head Primary will be reinforcing efforts to insulate children who are chronically exposed to violence.

“The guidance counsellors continue to work with parents and they work with the students within the school. We also have different programmes and different agencies out there who are part of the initiative in terms of providing that kind of psychosocial support,” she said.

Social services organisation RISE Life Management Services will be offering assistance to Naggo Head.

Gibans told The Gleaner that her school has been negatively impacted by “pockets of violence” since 2020, adding that the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) intervention, specifically through the Community Safety and Security Branch, has been crucial in the process.

Naggo Head Primary also has a police youth club, which will resume operations in September.

The principal said that the Portmore institution is preparing to introduce students to the School-wide Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support, an initiative promoted by the education ministry to help students cope with problems such as violence by promoting safer schools and a disciplined, structured environment.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com