WAKEFIELD, Trelawny — Following the grisly killing of one of his students Leighton Johnson, principal of Muschett High School has added his voice to the call for an end to the two-shift system operating at some of the nation’s secondary schools.

The body of 13-year-old Aliesha Brown, who went missing after leaving home for school on Monday morning, was found clad in her school uniform, covered with a black motorcar bumper in bushes near the ruins of the Stewart Castle Great House, Wednesday afternoon.

The grade eight student, left her home in Refuge district in the parish, early Monday morning to be on time for the morning shift at her school in Wakefield about 14 miles away.

“It’s time for us now to look at the shift system with a view to getting rid of it so that we can have students out a little later in the mornings,” a distraught Johnson told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

“The system again failed this young lady on the basis that she had to be out that early to get to school that starts at 7:00 am. And that is a good thing. One should always strive for punctuality. It’s a good trait, it’s a life skill but the point is we are no longer living in a safe Jamaica and for us to have our children exposed to that level of threat so early in the morning, I feel that we have failed them.”

The Muschett High principal also noted that when students are on the shift system they have a lot of time on their hands.

“They are either at school or on the roads too early or too late. School begins at 7:00 am so some of them have to get up as early as 4:30 am in order to get here. School ends at 5:00 pm so some of them may be on the road until 7:30 pm or 8:00 pm on the basis that they live in communities that are far away from the school,” he explained.

He was speaking to the Observer yesterday morning at the school, over which hung an atmosphere of gloom in the wake of the bizarre murder.

“It is usually one of those situations that you wish you didn’t have to deal with. The teachers and students are really hurting. The students are sad, especially her classmate and all those whom she spent an entire year with last year. They are really hurt,” the grieving school principal expressed.

He added: “This was a really promising student who was diligent in all she did. She was never late for school. She was the one who was always punctual and worked with a purpose.”

One student, Atina Nembhard, says she breaks down each time she sees Aliesha’s picture.

“Every time me see her picture on my phone I cry. And me show mi mother and she say it could be anyone of us. She was a nice little girl,” Nembhard recounted of her schoolmate who is affectionately called ‘Miss Chin’.

Several counsellors from nearby schools, the Ministry of Education and the Trelawny Victim Support participated in grief counselling sessions with the students at the school yesterday.

In the meantime, the Trelawny police who were probing the incident, were up to late yesterday afternoon, unable to make a breakthrough in the case.