EDUCATION Minister Senator Ruel Reid says the ministry will be working closely with the Cumberland High School in Portmore, St Catherine, to ease the strained relationship between students and staff.

In addition, Minister Reid, following a meeting with school officials including members of the board, the Ministry of Education, and Member of Parliament for St Catherine South East Colin Fagan, promised to make the necessary interventions to improve the quality of learning at the institution.

Earlier this month, classes at the school were suspended after a teacher was threatened by members of a group which accompanied the parent of a grade 9 student to the school, following an incident involving the principal. The child allegedly broke the rear windscreen of the educator’s SUV after she was scolded by the principal.

The minister, while noting that the meeting was as a result of what took place two weeks ago, said the task at hand was to do what the ministry should have been doing to transform the school.

“I know we have given you ‘basket to carry water’ when we look at the body of students we give you at Cumberland. Intellectually, they are way below average; some of them cannot even manage oral instructions. They have limited vocabulary, they get very frustrated, they get angry and one of the reason they get angry is when they try to express themselves,” Reid said.

The ministry, he said, will be partnering with the Caribbean Maritime Institute and Mico University College Child Assessment and Research in Education Centre to meet the students’ social needs students, saying everyone has to be on board.

“If it is that we want Cumberland High School to be an excellent institution, a centre of excellence, we first of all together have to have the vision that we want to be number one. If we are not on the same page that vision can’t work.

“The pact I am going to make with Cumberland this (yesterday) morning is, you run the school and I will give you the resources,” Reid continued, adding that he would like to to meet with the board chairman once per quarter.

Meanwhile, the minister said that within the next couple of weeks a perimeter fence would be erected at a cost of $20 million.

“Preliminary contract work is taking place as we speak, so that will happen in short order. I believe the wall barring any unforeseen circumstances, is pretty much an eight-week activity, once the contract starts,” the minister told the Jamaica Observer.

During the protest, dean of discipline at the school, Rene Level said one of the main contributing factors to the break down in discipline was the lack of fencing. “You will suspend a child and that child ends up back on the compound,” Level said.

Principal Michael Brydson, who was seemly overwhelmed by the minister’s announcements, said personnel came and took the measurement for the perimeter fence.

Brydson, who maintained that the media reports about the recent incident at the school were untrue, refused to speak about what actions he would be taking going forward.