‘Lucky to be alive’

WESTERN BUREAU:

“Untenable!”

That’s how Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison has described the security crisis in rural schools where she said principals have assumed the role of guards quelling flare-ups in violence.

Harrison has blamed the absence of fencing and a watchman at Retirement Primary in St Elizabeth for the savage attack on the school’s principal, Ann Marie Robinson Terlonge, last Friday.

Robinson Terlonge sustained three machete chops to the head from a man known as ‘Chris’ on the school compound.

The accused was reportedly behaving boisterously at the school on Thursday and had allegedly threatened a cook and gardener employed at the facility three weeks ago.

The principal, who was admitted to Black River Hospital, remains in stable condition.

“I am lucky to be alive,” Robinson Terlonge, an educator for 35 years told The Gleaner from her hospital bed Sunday.

Education Minister Fayval Williams urged administrators and security personnel to be careful when interfacing with trespassers.

Williams said she was shocked and horrified by the report.

“This attack on a member of the school community is highly distressing. We want our schools to be safe environments for students, teachers, and support staff, and this reprehensible attack undermines all the efforts being made to create safe spaces for the school community,” said Williams in a statement issued Sunday.

“At the same time, I am urging school staff to exercise caution when confronting unauthorised persons who have entered your campuses. You do not know their state of mind or the extent to which they may be armed. It is better to summon the help of the security forces.”

Counselling services have been offered to staff and students.

The JTA president expressed support for Monday’s planned nationwide protest by teachers who will wear black to show disapproval of violence against teachers.

“Colleagues, if there is ever a time we need to unite and serve, it is now,” said an appeal being circulated on social media.

The JTA said she was concerned about the impression that educators were trained as karate specialists.

“We are expected to stand in the gap, whether it be our students who are enraged or an intruder from our community. We are expected ... to solve these problems. It certainly cannot continue as is,” Harrison said.

The attack happened a day after the Ministry of Education launched an anti-violence campaign in schools titled ‘Just Medz It’.

The Retirement Primary principal says she has, for some time, appealed for the school to be fenced and hopes that the attack will spark action. Approximately 70 students are enrolled at the multigrade facility.

She said her attacker does not have a child attending the school and is not a member of staff.

“My school is not near to the road. So you’re not passing there to go anywhere,” she said.

Robinson Terlonge said she asked the man to leave the compound but he reportedly started arguing that the quality of tutelage at the school was not up to standard.

“In the middle of telling him to get off the school compound, he punched me in the face, so I used the machete I had in hand to try to defend myself, but he bit me on my right arm. I fell and he took away the machete and used it to chop me in my head,” said Robinson Terlonge.

She said the day before the attack, the entire school had to seek cover because of his alleged misconduct.

“Our students are now traumatised,” she stated.

Efforts to get a comment from the commanding officer for St Elizabeth, Superintendent Kenneth Chin, and the Jamaica Constabulary Force information arm were unsuccessful.

Calls to Chin’s phone went unanswered.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com