WESTERN BUREAU — After 32 years of molding and shaping the lives of hundreds of teenage boys who have passed through the doors of the Cornwall College High School in Montego Bay, Croswell Taylor is set to retire from the post of principal.

“Yes we have advertised for a principal because the current principal is due to retire this year. He has served the school well and has seen to its continued growth and development,” confirmed school board chairman, Nathan Robb.

He credited Taylor for re-instituting the school’s 6th form system, which was scrapped in the 1970s with the opening of the Montego Bay Community College, which provided an alternative to an extra year at Cornwall.

“Taylor has done a yeoman service to teaching. It is something worthy of celebration,” Robb added.

But Taylor, who has come under flak for the less than adequate security measures at the school, will not be missed by all.

“He has been a good principal but it is time for him to go. He has served his time and I feel he is tired,” said one student who spoke frankly, but only on condition of anonymity. “It is in the school rules that cell phones should not be on the compound yet students would just walk by him and he would not say a word to them.”

Taylor recently banned the instruments after an armed man got onto the compound and stole a student’s phone. But he has been criticised for the knee-jerk reaction and critics have called on him to address what they see as the real problem – the lack of security on the school compound.

Taylor is due to leave the institution in September when he is to go on retirement leave, but according to Robb that decision is not “cast in stone”.

“Whoever receives the baton will receive it in good condition,” Robb said.