EDUCATION Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson on Tuesday encouraged staff and students of the Bridgeport High School in St Catherine to move on for the good of the institution, although they were still hurting from the recent stabbing death of a 15 year-old student, Lamar Campbell.

Henry-Wilson, who led a team of ministry and Jamaica Teachers’ Association officials during a visit to the Portmore school, told the students to turn their backs on violence, and resolve their differences in a calm and peaceful manner. She also urged them to end speculations that school principal Aston Messam had refused to take Campbell to the hospital.

The relationship between the staff, students and members of the Bridgeport community has been tense since the April 30 incident. The principal had also received threats, because of what he said was a misunderstanding in the transporting of young Campbell to the Spanish Town Hospital.

“I think what you have seen from April 30, when this incident occurred, until now, is the fact that there is a very high cost to violence,” the education minister told the students.

“It is not only the persons who are immediately involved, but you think of the number of wasted hours that have resulted in our just trying to get back the situation together again. You think about the time you are spending, even on your own, just trying to come to terms with what has happened,” said the minister.

“If there is any lesson that we need to learn here, it is that nobody benefits from violence. In the end all of us are going to be victims of that violence,” the minister added.

She also appealed to members of the Bridgeport community to make a resolution to turn its back on violence.

“.This is maybe the first time that you are experiencing this, but the education system has been plagued with violence, violence outside, violence inside and a part of education is for us to talk to each other to resolve conflict, to try and find solutions to the thing that we see as undesirable,” Henry-Wilson said.

That point was re-emphasised by Jamaica Teachers’ Association president Wentworth Gabbidon, who advised grieving students not to bottle up their tears.

“We recognise the violence occurring in the school is as a result of what is happening in the wider community. Let peace reign, not only in the school but also in the community,” he urged.

Mayor of Portmore George Lee, who was on hand to encourage the Bridgeport staff and students, said the events of the last two weeks were a blot on the school’s image. He asked students to help ensure there was no recurrence and instead work at rebuilding the school’s image.

At the same time, he said a community meeting would take place ‘within a few days’ to address the problem of gangs operating outside of the school. Their influence, he said, had filtered onto the premises at Bridgeport High.

“We are going to make certain that the gunman and the don man and the violent man and the sex fiend cannot survive in this school,” said Lee.