‘Somebody dropped the ball’

Monique Grant-Facey, principal of the Happy Grove High School in Portland, walked the school’s corridors last Friday, annoyed, frustrated, and on the brink of “losing it”.

It was 2:45 p.m. and still, a contractor assigned to the school by the National Education Trust in the Ministry of Education and Youth to carry out repairs following the passage of Hurricane Beryl had not yet shown up for a scheduled meeting with her.

This was after Grant-Facey and the Education Minister Fayval Williams, who visited the school last Thursday, were assured that repairs would get under way soonest; and also after construction material – for the first time since the Category 4 storm struck nearly two months ago – were delivered to the school on Thursday evening.

It is as if persons are not sharing the urgency, bemoaned a strained Grant-Facey, who, in pain, conceded that the reopening of the school would have to be suspended as several classrooms and staff facilities remain in shambles with no repairs taking place. This was after the Ministry of Education post-storm deemed the school among those critically impacted.

“We are not going to reopen school [on Monday]. We cannot,” said Williams, her voice heavy with disappointment, as she recalled numerous conversations with the contractor and emails she sent to the ministry over the summer advising that no work had started on the campus and that the students would be gravely impacted.

“Somebody dropped the ball somewhere where this school is concerned. The reporting system was not right, and so you found that they (ministry) were of the impression that work was being done here, but no work was going on outside of stripping down the auditorium,” the headmistress said, citing her main building of concern.

“The auditorium [block], which houses all of my science departments – all my labs, the staff room for science – [as well as] the tuck shop, reading room, printing room, a staffroom, my two vice-principals’ offices, and my main IT lab, ... was damaged,” she explained to The Sunday Gleaner.

“It is also the space where when rain is falling, that is where we have our physical education classes ... . So once I don’t have access to that, you have taken out the nucleus of my school,” Grant-Facey explained, adding that the destruction of a second classroom block, which even prior to the storm was showing “critical” defects, further compounds the situation. The storm, she said, further took out the windows, and left “a total mess”.

Luckily, the school’s emergency plan prevented much damage to equipment and documents at the school; but continuous rainfall last week exposed inadequacies in several other buildings, and she is not prepared to expose any of her students to unsafe structures. Hopefully, there may be some semblance of normalcy in the coming weeks, and school will be able to reopen, she hoped.

“I feel slighted .... . I am at the school, on campus, waiting on the contractor to come to see how best we can get even a section of the school operational, where I can bring my students in,” she lamented, noting the impact the delayed opening could have on her more than 1,000 students.

Equally disturbing

At Titchfield High School, located in Port Antonio in the parish, things were equally disturbing. Principal Richard Thompson contemplated staggering the introduction of students to the school, where seven buildings were badly damaged by the storm.

“So far, work would have commenced on three of them. The ministry has been focusing on classrooms, and so they would have started repairs on three sections. None of them would have been completed,” said Thompson, also expressing concern for his lab spaces. “The other section, the admin block, computer lab, and Block B – the oldest, largest structure on the compound, which houses our labs – no work has started on that section.”

Though some buildings may be occupied, students and staff would be in for trouble when it rains, he told The Sunday Gleaner. One building in particular, he said, “is structurally unsound based on an engineer’s report.

“The staff feel unsafe in it. It encompasses my office, the bursar’s office, the accounts department, and several other critical areas of the school,” he noted, adding that the ministry has been made aware of the situation and that plans are afoot to remedy it.

The education minister also visited Titchfield on Thursday, said Thompson, noting she also got a commitment from contractors that work should be completed in upcoming weeks.

“Only some students will come in each day,” the headmaster said, adding that while there was no loss of critical records, a few equipment were damaged by the storm.

FARING BETTER

The experience was vastly contrasting at the Buff Bay Primary School, where workmen and women spent last Thursday bushing, painting, and cleaning the schoolyard, desks, and the canteen in preparation for the new school year.

Principal Jaqueline Edwards was bubbling with praise for parents, staff members, and residents, who played their part to make the September 2 opening possible.

A section of the school’s tuck shop roof was displaced and electrical wires dislodged, but the school, which doubled as a shelter during the hurricane, weathered the disaster with grace, she beamed, yet mindful of other schools and their students who were greatly affected in the parish.

“We are just doing touching up: painting the insides, painting the rails, the chairs, and the grilles. We would have cut all the trees to get some light in,” noted Edwards. “We would have also power-washed the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms, and we have some desks in the classrooms that we are removing and replacing with some better ones.”

“So far, I have not gotten any complaints from parents. They have been very anxious, and they are awaiting the reopening. The children who have come in for registration are excited and we have registered 60-odd grade one students so far and we have been registering students in the other grades. So admission is not doing too badly at all.”

Kevin Brown, acting principal of Buff Bay High School, explained that school will reopen this week but that orientation will be staggered. Only one grade nine class was badly damaged at the school and there was no loss of equipment or records.

“For the new school year, the biggest issue that we are having is the fees that they (parents) should be paying for the children. Some people just don’t want to pay this year. ... [It] is worse than previous years. I don’t know if the storm has anything to do with that,” noted Brown, explaining that while no child will be turned away for unpaid fees, the money collected is vital to the overall operation of the institution.

Brown, who has been acting in the principal’s office since April, said the new school year is a fresh start for him and will be met with many changes, aimed at lifting the students’ grades, which have not been the best in recent times. He is urging parents and students to support the efforts on the horizon.

“Our passes have not been the greatest so we are grouping maths and English right across the school, which means we are putting students according to the level they are at, whether that is reading or numeracy; and we are using teachers who may be able to meet these children where they are and take them to the next level,” he explained, listing also the implementation of study areas and a slew of beautification projects for the school.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com