TROUBLE is brewing between the Bowden Hill community in west rural St Andrew and the Anglican Church over plans for the church to nominate a new board chairman for Bowden Hill Primary and Infant School.

The Bowden Hill Community Benevolent Society is concerned that the Anglican Church is pushing to reassert its right to intervene in the school’s affairs after what it alleged have been 10 years of “painful” abandonment by the church and has petitioned the education ministry to intervene.

Lord Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands Rt Rev Dr Howard Gregory said he was not in receipt of the petition, and therefore could not comment on the matter. “The ministry has to respond to something like that before I can make a comment. They will speak to me, that is how we deal with matters affecting schools,” he told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

Phillip Smith, president of the benevolent society which is leading the objection, told the Observer that the church forfeited its right when it refused to meet with the community to assist the school in 2015 when the student population dropped to 18, forcing the education ministry to order its doors closed. “When the community was undergoing the agony of us losing our school, all the interest groups in the community came together and decided that we would try to arrange representation with one voice. Since then, the benevolent society has been speaking on behalf of the community,” Smith stated.

He said the last time the church had an active chairman on the school board was in 2005, and that the string of chairmen since then have only been on paper and have never been met by any of the other board members.

A petition bearing 154 signatures was sent to the Ministry of Education on Friday staunchly objecting to the church being allowed to exercise its statutory right to nominate a chairman for the school board, which was dissolved on March 31.

Smith said the community was prepared to take drastic action if a board chairman or any board member chosen by the church is foisted upon the school. “We are patiently waiting to hear if the Government is going to be going ahead… If we are going to get the ministry presenting a board from the Anglican Church we are going to have a demonstration,” he said.

Smith and outgoing Chairman Dr Simone Buckham-Heaven said that the board has been hastily reconstituted ahead of the end date of its tenure in order to accommodate the church’s wishes.

A letter dated March 3 from the National Council on Education to the benevolent society said: “The reconstitution has become necessary to allow the Anglican Church to exercise its statutory right to nominate the school board chairman.”

“The community is amazed at the sudden occurrence with the Anglican Church displaying an interest to exercise its constitutional right to select the chairman of our school board,” the organisation wrote in its petition”.

The benevolent society comprises the school, the citizens’ association, youth group, and the business community, which formed a unit called the Bowden Hill Community and Environs Benevolent Society all in an effort to get the school back on its feet.

Dr Buckham-Heaven said the entire community is behind the position taken by the benevolent society, which is insisting that if the church wants in again it should approach the society formally instead of seeking to force its way back into authority after the hard work put in by the community to restore the institution. The school now has 81 students out of a capacity of 110.