President of the Jamaica Independent Schools Association (JISA) Tamar McKenzie says private schools, which were hard hit by Hurricane Beryl in July, managed to reopen their doors this month through the sheer strength of their stakeholders after appeals to the education ministry for aid fell on deaf ears.

According to McKenzie, the private schools suffered an estimated $50 million in damage from Beryl.

“Many of our schools had severe challenges, from flooding which we experienced at the Heinz Simonitsch School in Montego Bay. We had schools, one in Ocho Rios [St Ann], for example, which had a challenge with one of its buildings which was inaccessible based on the damage. We had a school in Manchester, Munro Prep; they lost an entire section of their building. We had challenges at one of our schools in Portland. We were on our own, there was no support at all that we got from the Ministry of Education,” McKenzie told the
Jamaica Observer recently.

She said while data on the damage was collected and submitted to the education ministry there was “no support or response”, leaving the schools to rally their internal stakeholder groups, and look within their school community for support.

“That was what we were able to use to move into the new school year as seamlessly as we could. So we had alumni associations coming out to support, we had schools that sought financing, they had to get creative to ensure that the repairs were done in time for the resumption of school. Just managing on their efforts alone and with their internal network, we were able to restart without disruption,” McKenzie said.

She argued that the ability of these schools to reopen on time should not be interpreted as them being reservoirs of cash.

“We had significant challenges and because we are privately funded, the challenge we naturally had was to raise the funds we needed within the short time because budgets would have already been set and the summer period is your slowest. This is not a period where you are collecting tuition fees or was able to create emergency funding because you are trying to maintain salaries for your staff during the summer period so that was the greatest burden we had,” McKenzie explained.

“Returning to school this academic year really demonstrated the resilience of our private schools and we commend our school leaders, we had many schools that were crippled and had to depend on support from stakeholders. One of the greatest challenges was the time frame to complete the repairs in time for school to resume,” she added.

McKenzie pointed out that the challenge facing private schools in the lead up to the new school year was compounded by the shortage of teachers.

“Resignations are being received right before schools are open so the challenges are not limited to just the damages from hurricane in terms of physical infrastructure; we have to look at the toll it has taken on our educators. Our administrators on the ground who are leading the charge, our principals on the ground are not facility managers, many of them do not have the expertise and you are also having the same small team managing the teacher shortage that is affecting all of us,” she pointed out.

In noting the efforts of the education ministry to repair public schools to the tune of $3 billion, McKenzie said, “in the relief that they are coordinating we know public schools are the priority but if it is there are private schools that are having exceptional needs, we ask that they be included”.

More than 300 of the island’s public schools suffered damage from Hurricane Beryl which impacted the island on July 3.