Adrian Frater | St James High School’…a long history of unorthodox management

Over recent weeks, the Montego Bay-based St James High School has been in the news, with reports of the school’s principal, Joseph Williams, allegedly expelling students without the knowledge and consent of the school’s board, and in breach of the Ministry of Education and Youth’s Code of Regulations 1980.

The chairman of the school board, Maurice McCurdy, said in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, that the principal has no authority to expel a student without due process, which means going through the school board and providing the student with the opportunity to challenge the expulsion.

In all the reports on the principal allegedly expelling students without due process, one thing that has seemingly escaped attention is Williams’ claim that “I did not expel any students”.

As a former board member at St James High School, where I was a teacher for 19 years and four months, I can identify with Williams’ “I did not expel any student” comment because of my knowledge of how a problematic student could be separated from the school without going the expulsion route.

To put St James High School into context, when I went there as a young teacher in 1980, the school was a pariah among schools in Montego Bay. To be placed there was like a ‘batch of dishonour’. The school was seen as a nursery for gangs, so it was a school attended by top-flight enforcers of the Stone Crusher gang such as Rohan ‘Don’ Gordon, Cedric ‘Doggy’ Murray, and Delano ‘Bigga Crime’ Williams, who all became St James most wanted before they died. Added to that list is former Canterbury enforcers Omar ‘King Evil’ Lewis, and Hopeton ‘Sandokhan’ Brown, who both became America’s most wanted.

I was a part of the school board that selected Williams as principal in 2006 from a list of applicants, which included former education minister Ruel Reid. He was selected primarily because of the reputation he had developed as a no-nonsense disciplinarian as a teacher at St Ann’s Marcus Garvey High School, which, like St James High School, was an institution with renowned disciplinary challenges.

For context, in my time on the school’s board, I served as staff representative, parent-teacher association (PTA) representative, and, finally, as a community member. I served under the chairmanship of renowned figures such as George Duncan, Mark Kerr-Jarrett, Lee Bailey, Dr Simon Clarke and Bishop Conrad Pitkin.

When Williams was appointed as principal, part of his mandate was to clean up the image of the school, which was at the time like an extension of the Barnett Street Police Station, where many students, especially those aligned to gangs, spent much of their time.

Prior to Williams’ arrival, and I suspect after he came, whenever a student became uncontrollable, instead of waiting around until he or she killed or maimed another student, the parents would be invited in and encouraged to withdraw their child. At times, it would take a little more than just gentle persuasion but, in most cases, the parents would withdraw those students and send them off to learn a trade.

TRADE-OFF ARRANGEMENTS

There were also cases of trade-off arrangements with other schools, especially in the case of female students who got pregnant. These students did not return to school after having their babies, but would be transferred to other schools, under a reciprocal arrangement with those schools, to complete their education.

It should be noted that, during my time at St James High School, I saw students killed on the compound, I saw a student’s hand being severed, I saw a student footballer having one of his eyes plucked out from a stab would, I saw a student disarm a police officer, and hearing gunshots being fired in the bushes around the school all, but became routine.

To see the transformation that has taken place at St James High under William’s leadership has been a joy to watch. The school is now doing better in external examinations than many schools with much better reputations. The institution has joined the ranks of schools that have won the DaCosta Cup, symbol of rural schoolboy football supremacy; and is now the preferred school for many students leaving the primary level.

I have heard some aggrieved parents accusing Williams of being a dictator, and being uncouth, but for his students, especially those who are from single-parent home, he is the other father figure they know, so it is no surprise that his nickname at the school is ‘Daddy’.

Having worked with Williams on several school boards over the years, I have seen the passion he takes to his job as principal and, while he is not a perfect man, he is a man with good intentions, and I am sure that that is what was seen when he was made LASCO Principal of the Year in 2018-2019.

Williams is now being investigated by the current school board over the recent ‘so-called’ expulsions, however, while he is clearly under pressure, I believe that once he did not deviate from the ‘gentle persuasion’, which sees problematic students being separated from the school with the support of their parents, he should have nothing to worry about.

Adrian Frater is a journalist attached to The Gleaner Company (Media) Ltd. Send feedback to editorial@gleanerjm.com