The level of joy evident Saturday evening in Merl Grove High School’s Karram Speid-Auditorium, Constant Spring Road, St Andrew, spoke volumes about human emotions.

Twenty-eight women who left the school in a rather ignoble manner in 1983 and 1984, carried the anguish of being punished for the indiscipline of a few when their graduation ceremonies were abruptly cancelled, more than three decades ago.

On Saturday evening, to redress what was belatedly accepted as a wrong done to those girls who were innocent, Merl Grove High staged a special graduation ceremony at which school-leaving certificates were presented to the aggrieved women.

For sure, this story elsewhere in this edition and that we first carried on October 29, 2018, is indeed an unusual story that has presented itself as a teachable moment for those charged with the lives of young children and how to discipline them for bad behaviour.

The story is that on the eve of graduation, a few girls were caught in compromising situations with some boys at a fund-raising barbecue, and the graduation was cancelled to punish them.

We are told that so painful was that action that many of the estimated 200 women affected could not even bring themselves to say they attended Merl Grove and would have nothing to do with fund-raisers or other activities meant to benefit the school.

Regrettably, several of the other girls were unable to attend, or receive their high school certificates because they had probably not heard of the November 17 ceremony, while some may still be seething. Some took their grief to the grave.

One 1983 past student, Ms Cerene Betancourt graduated posthumously, having died in January 2011, and it was obvious that the gathering was moved as two of her daughters and grandchildren went on stage to receive her certificate.

Another highpoint was the 1983 student, Mississippi-based Yvonne McDonald who recounted that her mother Ms Odelyn Binns was even more affected than her when the 1983 ceremony was cancelled.

“I was the first of her children to attend high school and she was really looking forward to the graduation ceremony,” said Ms McDonald whose mother and daughter Ms Trecia-Ann Williams

attended the ceremony from Florida to celebrate with her.

The school had the eminently good sense to open the graduation to Ms Norma Lattibeaudiere-Dixon who was in the class of 1975 but dropped out because of pregnancy after one term in fifth form.

Bearing no ill will towards the school, she became a stalwart supporter and was appropriately honoured for outstanding contribution to Merl Grove High as a past student and given her school-leaving certificate.

The board and management of the school are to be commended for deciding even at this late stage to correct what was palpably a bad decision. We might never know why the 1983/84 leadership chose such a drastic route.

But we know that there is a widespread practice of dishing out collective punishment when misbehaving culprits cannot be identified. In the case of Merl Grove, the guilty parties were apparently known.

Still, as the saying goes: All’s well that ends well. We hope the graduation ceremony will bring healing to those still hurting and that the current students will be the beneficiaries of their support for Merl Grove High.