Hampton to enter new school year with repair work incomplete

Despite less than half the repair work being completed at Hampton School in St Elizabeth, Principal Mahvell Charlton-Brown is confident that the ongoing restoration will not impact the reopening of school in two weeks.

The school was severely affected during the passage of Hurricane Beryl last month, which damaged the roofs of the staffroom, administrative building and dormitories.

Charlton-Brown told The Gleaner that approximately 30 per cent of the renovation work had been completed up to the start of this week, since it got under way on July 31.

“From what we’ve seen, the grade-seven block should be ready. We are also seeing that one of three blocks of the sixth-form complex should be ready. The other buildings, such as the staffrooms and the home economics laboratory, right now we don’t see that that will (be) completed,” she said.

She anticipated that repair work would be completed by the third week of September, and said school will commence while work is ongoing.

“We intend to reopen even if some areas of the school still have work going on, so we have already determined where we will place certain classes, and our teachers will be spread across smaller rooms as interim staffrooms … and we are willing to use some other spaces for classrooms,” she said.

Orientation period

Fortunately, Charlton-Brown noted that the first two weeks of school will be an orientation period which, she said, will allow for classes to be staggered and spread across available rooms.

“The aim is to begin September 1, to receive our new students, and we will have them for [a] specific number of days, then we will have our grades eight and nine coming in; and so, in the first week, we will have specific days for grades seven, eight and nine to make sure they are engaged. Then, in the second week, we will receive grades 10, 11, and 13; we’re doing all of that while we’re trying to make room for the completion of the work,” she said.

By taking this approach, she said she was laying the foundation for the school’s operation for the rest of the year so, “in the event there is any further development or any further delay”, its approximately 1,200 students would have already been engaged.

“While we are ensuring that students are not left hanging, we are also simultaneously providing additional time to shore up all the facilities for completion of restoration,” she stressed.

Currently, contractors are doing electrical repair work on the compound, Charlton-Brown shared.

Although the roof of the administrative building was damaged, the principal noted that staff were there throughout the summer, so preparations for the upcoming school year were not stalled.

“The roofing was stripped, so you can see the membrane. It simply means that with a heavy shower of rain, we’ll have water entering the building,” she said.

She said that solar panels provided electricity during the period before power was restored last Thursday.

“All the administrative obligations, in terms of transcripts, report cards, other documentation, staff recruitment, those things, we were able to get done,” she said.

Hampton School was listed by the Ministry of Education and Youth as priority one among the 213 schools that suffered damage due to the Category 4 hurricane. Schools classified as priority one were severely affected and given immediate attention to effect repairs in time for school reopening. These schools were assigned to contractors under an emergency contract procurement strategy, the ministry stated in July.

The ministry’s Technical Services Unit and the National Education Trust will oversee and monitor the repair works. The ministry had initially indicated that it would cost almost $800 million to repair all schools that were damaged.

However, Charlton-Brown noted that it was the school that would bear responsibility to restore the residential facilities for staff and students. The approximately $200-million restoration cost, she said, also includes the expense of replacing furniture and appliances.

However, she lauded the support that the school has been receiving from its old girls’ association and other civic organisations to bear this expense.

“There have been efforts to raise funds and so we are getting support from that end. The chapel sustained significant damage, internally and externally … and the old girls have committed to working on that building. They are also working to help us in setting up our proxy staffroom spaces,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com