STUDENTS of the Donald Quarrie High School in East Kingston may have a full week after the official start of the 2007/08 school year for the resumption of classes, after Hurricane Dean caused extensive infrastructural damage to the institution two Sundays ago.

The eastern wall of the Industrial Arts block situated at the back of the premises was knocked out by huge waves caused by the category four storm, dousing the desks, chairs and mechanical equipment housed in the facility with tons of water before burying them under mounds of sand.

Vocational classes at the school will therefore be suspended, says principal Reford Hinds, until the repairs to the building can be effected and the machines replaced.

“We might not be able to start on the 10th but we should start shortly after, like about a week,” Hinds told the Observer last week.

Last Tuesday, the ministry of education announced a one-week delay in the start of the 2007/08 school year from September 3 to September 10. Its decision was a result of damage done to schools across the island by hurricane Dean as well as the rescheduling of general elections from August 27 to September 3. But even so, Hinds said he would have to further delay the reopening of school for the Christmas term.

“What we will have to do is concentrate on the core subjects and leave the practical ones out. The students will suffer, but the ministry needs to effect an emergency plan to deal with the situation,” he explained.

In the interim, Hinds said he was seeking to partner with some of the schools in the area such as Vauxhall, Camperdown and Dunoon High with a view to having his grade eleven students do their woodwork, carpentry, metalwork, electrical technology and visual arts classes there.

The long-term plan, however, is to have the school relocated. Hinds said the school’s present location near the seaside is no longer safe as the sea inches closer and closer each year, posing a threat to both human life and property.

“The long-term plan is for the school to be relocated. In three to four years it should be relocated [and] the ministry needs to take a serious look at it…We want the ministry to treat the school as a priority so we can do the repairs and get things back on track,” he told the Observer lastTuesday.

“The sea is reclaiming its ground. (Hurricane) Ivan had brought it closer to us and Dean has brought it even closer,” he continued, pointing to the murky aqua water of the Caribbean Sea just a few short metres from the back wall of the school’s Industrial Arts building. He said the 2004 storm was no match for Dean.

“We’re on the beach. If the students want physical education we can take them swimming because we’re now on the beach,” the principal joked.

In a more serious mood, Hinds – who has been at the helm of Donald Quarrie for a little over three years – pointed to the irony that the institution, named after the great Jamaican sprinter, did not have a playfield. He said there was one in the past but that the sea had swallowed up the area where it once stood. He disclosed that there were plans to construct a multi-purpose sports area and an auditorium at the school’s present site but said that in light of the damage done by Dean, those will have to be shelved.

Things appeared relatively calm on Tuesday, but during the storm on Sunday night, the raging sea threw 30-metre waves onto the school grounds which not only knocked out the wall of the industrial arts department but dumped several large boulders, inches of sand, silt, mud and driftwood on the previously concrete floor, making the rooms into miniature versions of the Caribbean Seabed.

From outside the wall-less vocational studies area, the sea’s onslaught was also evident. The entire compound – once enclosed on the eastern and southern sides by a mesh perimeter fence – all the way around to the western section previously earmarked for the school auditorium was littered with debris including driftwood, uprooted reeds and other foliage, boulders, plastic bottles and of course, sand. The waves also displaced two heavy skips and threw down a concrete utility pole, damaging the two transformers affixed to it.

The canteen, reading room and guidance counselling department are now left open to the elements as Dean also blew away their aluminum roofs.

Four teachers’ cottages that sit on the property were also affected by the waters brought by hurricane Dean’s waves, but the teachers say the large amount of debris they washed up held back much of the salty water.