WAKEFIELD, Trelawny – Still grieving from last week’s sudden passing of grade three student Alexia Drummond, Wakefield Primary and Infant School was plunged into further mourning this week following the deaths of a grade five teacher and a parent.

The teacher, 30-year-old Donnesha Evans, lost her battle with cancer and passed at her house in Falmouth, the Trelawny capital, on Monday. Her death was followed by that of Kimone Gourzang at her Wakefield home on Tuesday.

This brings to four the number of deaths within the school community over a six-month period. Before they lost Alexia, her classmate Makeal Senior died in July.

Principal Michael James explained that despite the overwhelming grief which blankets the school, the teaching staff is even more resolved in the execution of their duties.

“It’s traumatic, we are trying to engage in schoolwork and hopefully it helps us to stay strong. But rather than focusing on the deaths we try to educate the children,” a visibly distraught James told the Jamaica Observer.

“We have had persons who come in to assist us with grief counselling, but we are still trying to focus heavily on schoolwork,” he added.

Teachers Philippia Seaton and Gleneisha Downer, whose friendship with Evans go back from their days at Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College, were a picture of grief when the Observer visited the school on Wednesday.

“It is not a nice feeling,” said an emotional Seaton. Downer concurred.

Meanwhile, James revealed that since Alexia’s passing the school has crafted a system in an effort to track the status of students’ health, a process which was already implemented in the infant section.

He explained that during the marking of the attendance register in the mornings, teachers now ask students how they feel.

“Normally at the infant school we do that. Primary school we didn’t do that. But we have to do stuff like that [now] because maybe the child doesn’t know how to explain his or herself and might have some sickness that we don’t know. Sometimes I think the parents don’t know either or don’t have the time to ask,” said James.

In addition to keeping students safe, the new policy, he said, will protect his staff.

“It makes sense you do it because a child could come sick and parents don’t know, teacher don’t know. It [is] going [to] look like somebody negligent here, so we have to be tracking those stuff,” he noted.

“We had a meeting and that was one of the suggestions one of the teachers came up with. So we just have to try tracking their health,” the principal added.

James is also advocating that the Ministry of Education provides at least one “floating” nurse to monitor schools in the area.

“It would be good for the ministry to have a nurse that moves around to the different schools. In a case of an emergency it wouldn’t make much sense but at least that nurse would be on top of the health issues,” he suggested.

Last week, eight-year-old Alexia was reportedly seen unresponsive on the floor by her classroom teacher after the lunch break and was taken to a nearby health facility and then to hospital by school personnel. She was later declared dead.

Her teacher, Sheryl Chisholm, had recounted that shortly after resumption of classes following the lunch break last Tuesday she was walking through the class, while reviewing a lesson, when she spotted the eight-year-old slumped on the floor, unresponsive.

Her parents and other stakeholders are now awaiting the results of a post-mortem to know the cause of her death.