Furniture shortage, repairs delay Black River Primary reopening

A week after the start of the new academic year, classes are yet to resume at the Black River Primary and Infant School in St Elizabeth as work continues to restore hurricane-ravaged classrooms.

The school has approximately 819 students, none of whom are currently receiving classroom instruction as unstable Internet connectivity makes online classes impossible.

Administrators blame construction delays, including electrical retrofitting, and a shortage of furniture for the school’s lack of readiness.

On Thursday, The Gleaner observed staff and workmen scrambling to complete last-minute preparations, hoping the school would be ready for a full reopening on Monday.

“Mentally, we were all hoping that we would be fully engaged from September 7th. Unfortunately, we are not,” Senior Vice-Principal Andrea Coley-Foster told The Gleaner.

Despite this, she said the morale of staff remains high.

She said that although progress has been made, not all classrooms are fully ready.

“The roof is on, but the inside work – painting, electrical work – [remains outstanding]. Some of the classes, where the walls were torn down, the walls are up. [In] one area, the wall is up, however, it is not rendered,” she said.

Coley-Foster said three grade six classrooms are not ready, but the administration is trying to identify alternative spaces for classes, including the library.

She said the school managed to hold orientation for the infant department and Grade One cohort on Monday – an activity typically scheduled for the week before the official reopening.

UNFINISHED WORK

Due to unfinished work on the compound, grade one students had to be split into groups on Tuesday and Wednesday to complete their individual learning profile assessments.

Coley-Foster is hopeful that classes will begin for all students next week.

“They are not being engaged currently. Hopefully, by Monday, Monday the 14th, we are hoping that when they all come in, we will have spaces for them,” she told The Gleaner, adding that she was uncertain about when the repairs would be completed.

Black River Primary and Infant School was severely ravaged by Hurricane Melissa last October as the Category 5 system barrelled through the western end of the island.

Following a tour of the institution on August 18, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Senator Marlon Morgan, said repairs were about 60 per cent complete and urged contractors to accelerate the work.

On Wednesday, Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon said only three schools did not open on September 7 and that by midweek, all schools were operational.

To become fully operational, Coley-Foster said Black River Primary and Infant School would need furniture as many pieces were destroyed during the hurricane.

“Those that we saved, we had them in the classrooms. Unfortunately, when the men started working on the inside, they had to take them out. So they were outside under the tarpaulin. Some of them, the tarp blew off and rain wet them,” she said, explaining that some are made of bagasse material.

She said the ministry has supplied some new furniture, but the school still does not have enough.

The education ministry said $300 million has been spent to get furniture in schools for this school year. Prior to school reopening, 17,000 pieces of furniture were distributed and 8,000 pieces just before classes resumed. In addition, 20,000 are being prepared for further distribution.

Coley-Foster, in the meantime, said administrators are contemplating how they will carry out classes on Monday while construction is ongoing.

“Whether we are going to go on a rotation basis, as we did earlier in the year – in the last school year – or we are going to find some other measures to get them involved and learning [is to be decided],” she said.

“We can’t keep them out any longer. They were out for most of last year. We took them back on a rotation basis, and we need them back to be engaged for this year because there has been learning loss,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com