Ghost schools
- Former learning hubs now havens for decay and disuse - Villagers push for solutions to derelict buildings
Published:Sunday | December 1, 2024 | 12:09 AMCorey Robinson - Senior Staff Reporter
Once vibrant hubs of learning and laughter, now they stand as stark reminders of fading dreams and shrinking communities.
They are havens for wild animals, vagrants, and insects and spark contention among residents who remember their glory days and ponder the potential future uses of the neglected structures.
At least four of the 14 schools closed by the Government in Portland, St Mary, and St Ann in the last decade remained derelict during a Sunday Gleaner visit two weeks ago. Though the lands on which they are located are reportedly owned by the churches in the areas, there seemed to be no clear plans for repurposing.
Amid the neglect, two former schools – Watsonville Primary and Jeffreyville Primary in St Ann South Eastern – have found new life. Renamed Village Academy International, these facilities now serve as centres for agricultural education, aiming to foster employment and skills development in the local community.
Sydney Henry, director of Village Academy, said that despite minor setbacks when the school started in 2015, the institution has been delivering on its mandate, and has already trained dozens of people.
“Over three years when we just started, we met effective demands, graduating about 90 kids, 30 each year. The output was like three subjects per person and some of those persons are now correctional and police officers. We then looked for an opportunity to expand beyond what we were offering, which were CXCs , to something more sustainable. And because we were an agricultural-based community, we thought agriculture could be the bridge that we can use.
Focus is on quality
“In 2015 we had about 100 students, who we realised were coming on and off. So we did two things, we reduced that number because the focus is on quality, and not just quantity, and then we looked to partner with HEART/NSTA Trust, with the idea to develop an agriculture programme,” Henry explained, noting that access to the schools was initially a challenge for some students, especially those living in deep-rural, mountainous areas.
Today, the academy hosts a greenhouse, poultry houses, and livestock facilities at Jeffreyville, while Watsonville accommodates administrative offices and specialised training for some 20 young women – recent high school graduates – interested in agriculture.
“So we approached secondary schools in St Ann, and took from their agricultural group – young people who did not succeed or do so well – and we have given them a second chance here. ... And then we also took students from afar. We have students from Trelawny, from West Kingston, Clarendon, and that solidified the thought that we needed to have a residential programme,” Henry said, pointing to the dorm rooms on the property.
Not all schools share this success.
In Black Hill, Portland, residents are outraged by the disrepair of the former Black Hill All-Age School.
“Tell them to give it to us and let us put a [night]club in there. Because it is must that they want us to do with it why them have it up there not using,” fumed one woman, triggering a chorus of laughter among patrons at a bar not far from the old school compound. “You have a whole building like that in the community and it serves no purpose!”
But it is no laughing matter, charged a male patron among them. Something needs to be done with the building, which has now become a nest for termites, roaches, and insects, he pressed. He listed various announced plans since its closure in 2015.
“At one point, it was a storm shelter, and at another, they used to keep church there. But for the longest time, nothing has been going on up there,” explained resident Roy Taylor, affectionately called ‘Brother Keith’. “At one point, the HEART/NSTA Trust wanted to set up a training facility in there, and at another point, we heard that they wanted to set up a greenhouse. In the end, those things fell through and now the building is just up there unused.”
According to Taylor, residents in Black Hill and nearby communities face limited employment prospects, and the neglected building could be repurposed for income-generation activities.
But despite their best efforts, the residents said they have received no answers from either the church group that reportedly owns the land or from the Government with which the church had partnered to set up the public school.
Residents said students of Black Hill were relocated to Buff Bay Primary, the alternative also for students of Belvedere Primary School, after the latter Portland school was also shuttered in 2015.
In Belvedere, however, the story seemed more grim. Belvedere Primary, the authorities said, was closed as a result of low student enrolment, and the cause of this seemed evident during a Sunday Gleaner visit to the area bereft of basic social amenities and infrastructure. The main road leading to the hilly community is unpaved, revealing the state of neglect even before reaching the village. Residents said Belvedere is home to fewer than 150 people and has been beyond stifled for years.
As it is, only one taxi ventures into the community to transport students to Buff Bay Primary miles away. The station wagon is relatively small, residents said, so the students must make use of every bit of space, including its trunk, to get to school on time. Failing that, they either walk for miles or pay up to $3,000 in fares each morning. When the lone taxi is unavailable, the students are forced to skip school for the day.
The abandoned school now shelters drifters like Purtel McHugh, who was found sleeping inside. A stack of cigarette butts littered a teacher’s desk in one corner of a classroom. McHugh confessed to smoking a few, but said not all of them were his.
“The road is the biggest problem in the area, and because of it nobody wants to stay or even come back to the area,” tradesman Hubert Taylor told The Sunday Gleaner. “Because the road is like this, if a woman is even pregnant, the minute she is close to having the baby, you have to move her out of the community. You don’t want the baby to come and she is stuck up here. You are going to be in trouble!”
His son, Shanquan Taylor, takes the solitary taxi to school each morning, and prefers to ride in the trunk.
Hubert explained also that many residents have migrated from the area. While some have returned and have built houses in the area, when they die, none of their children return to occupy the premises. So, like Belvedere Primary, they remain abandoned.
Preston Hill’s former school tells a similar tale. Its 2015 closure emptied the St Mary community of livelihood, leaving the building to serve as a hurricane shelter and nothing more. Its gate is chained and the schoolyard is overgrown, with patches of cow faeces burning sections of the bushes.
For the most part, the building is still intact, though residents have no reason, outside of the hurricane period, to venture inside.
“Is not little ask people ask to keep something in there, but that was denied,” noted Richard Small, reporting that there are fewer than 100 residents of the community, including children.