THE five boys whose expulsion from Munro College for smoking marijuana ignited a bitter dispute over discipline at the school, returned to classes yesterday amid calls for healing and their promise not to do anything in the future to hurt the reputation of the institution.

But even as he called for closure to the episode, the principal of the St Elizabeth high school, Dr Earl Hendriks, warned students that he still intended to run an institution where discipline was paramount.

“I will not back away from discipline,” Hendriks told the 400 or so boys packed in the school’s auditorium for morning devotion on the first day of the Easter term.

It was at the same devotion that one of the youngsters, speaking on behalf of the group who had their expulsion overturned by Education Minister Burchell Whiteman, expressed gratitude for being allowed back into the school.

“We express thanks for being given a second chance,” said the student, wearing the school’s khaki uniform. “… We promise never to let the school down again.”

The assembly applauded.

Munro College, at Potsdam, near Malvern, St Elizabeth, found itself at the centre of the raging debate towards the end of last year when it came out that the five boys had been expelled but that the school board’s decision was likely to be rescinded by the education ministry on appeal.

When Whiteman last month confirmed that he had overturned the decision, it led first to the resignation of Dr Herbert Eldemire, the respected Montego Bay physician and elder statesman, from the Munro and Dickenson Trust, which recommends the members of the Munro board of governors to the education ministry. The trust administers the endowment left by the 18th century planter, Hugh Munro, for the education of boys in St Elizabeth.

Eldemire saw Whiteman’s decision as “a slap in the face” for the Munro Board which he had endorsed. Apparently the other members of the Munro and Dickenson Trust did not support the decision.

In the wake of Eldemire’s resignation, the president of the Munro College Old Boys’ Association, Dr Bryan Morgan, was forced to resign from both that post, and as a member of the school board, when he alone among his executive supported Whiteman’s decision, which the education minister claimed was based in legal advice.

Then last week, the nine other non-school members of the board resigned in protest of the minister’s decision, arguing that their positions had become untenable.

Over the Christmas holidays, all the school’s prefects had resigned their posts.

It was to that backdrop of controversy that the new school term opened yesterday and the five boys — who had last September left the school premises without permission and gone to Malvern to buy the marijuana — had to face faculty and students.

However, as boarders who were back on the compound Sunday, they may have also missed the depth of feeling the issue had aroused in nearby communities.

As the students gathered for devotion, a small group of demonstrators from Potsdam and another nearby community, Epping, gathered outside the school gate with placards criticising Whiteman and expressing anger over the presence of the boys.

Read one placard: “5 now 55 later”. Added another: “Weed smokers keep out”.

However, in a short address to the students and faculty, Hendriks said that he wanted to bring closure to the issue and he later told the Observer that despite their personal views on the matter, neither he nor his staff would do anything to jeopardise the educational prospects of all the boys at Munro.

“I have some of the most dedicated teachers in Jamaica on my staff,” Hendriks said.

Chief education officer, Wesley Barrett, who visited the school with other officials from the education ministry, said he did not anticipate any further problems.

“The school is back at work and we are very pleased that everything is going quite well so far,” he told the Observer after a meeting with staff and prefects. “The school has decided already that they are going to continue their work and we congratulate them on that approach.”

Head boy, Hopeton Williams, promised the support of prefects in re-integrating the Munro Five into the school community despite their view that the expulsions should have stood.

“The prefects on a whole are not satisfied with the ministry’s decision to have the boys back (but) we have to accept them now,” Williams said. “We can’t just have them segregated from the Munro community. We have to treat them as our own.”

He confirmed that the prefects had resigned as a bloc over the Christmas holidays but withdrew the resignations after the school administration “asked us to go back because the school would not run as efficiently if we had fully resigned”.