STUDENTS at Seaside Primary School at Hector’s River, Portland, are now learning in more comfort after four of seven classrooms there were retrofitted with air-conditioning (AC) units. And Principal Adli Lewis says efforts are being made to have ACs in the other classrooms by the end of this month.

But to do this, the school will have to raise $120,000 for each unit.

“It’s a challenge and a twofold one. We have to acquire the AC units [plus] the additional cost of installation and upgrading of the electrical wires in the school,” Lewis said as he pointed out that all stakeholders, including the students, are working to meet this challenge.

“The students along with their classroom teachers had a target, at the start of the new school year, to raise $30,000 on their own towards the AC units. Four classes met their target and one superseded it. They had a movie day and made more than $50,000. Parents know what is happening and each contributed $1,000. The classes are just about 30 [students] and we rent the plant to the church, scouts, or anyone to assist. School, parents, and children share the responsibility,” Lewis explained as he welcomed the stakeholders who have offered assistance in developing the school plant to make the learning environment comfortable, conducive, and productive.

“We have been transforming our classrooms for the past couple of years and we in the school community and stakeholders have embarked on a mission to transform our classrooms into 21st-century learning spaces,” he said.

“It started with the technology where we introduced multimedia, laptops and chromebooks. We are at the point now where we are looking at the classroom environment — how students feel, how teachers feel in the workspace and classroom space — and to make them more comfortable and conducive to learning,” added Lewis.

He pointed out that climate change is very much real and noted that Jamaica has been recording very high temperatures in recent times.

“At one point in June we had to vacate the classrooms because it was too hot on that day. We sent two classes to the lab as they were air-conditioned and we saw the urgent need to retrofit our classrooms with the cooling units. That’s the rationale behind it and we are happy to see it coming to some semblance of completion and students are comfortable. No sweating — cool, better concentration, [and] reduced frustration,” said Lewis.

According to the principal, his school is well ahead of the education ministry which recently announced plans to retrofit classrooms with multimedia projectors, laptops and labs.

“We are two or three years into having these things at Seaside Primary. The results are showing and this makes me excited as we have doubled some of the numbers in PEP [Primary Exit Profile] proficiency. We have seen the number of students passing mathematics move from 40 per cent to the 60s and in our worst-performing subject. The growth is there and I believe it is attributed to us using technology to make up for where we are lacking as teachers and also to meet the digital age learner. Our students are digital and we can’t teach them the analogue way,” added Lewis.

He gave credit to past student Paul Miles and the Paul Miles Foundation, who he said started the digital transformation at the school while several other schools in Portland have benefited from computers, chromebooks, projectors, and a lab from the foundation.

“We have more than 80 functional chromebooks in the school and any three classes can be outfitted at any time without disenfranchising each other, and we have three computer labs. We have over 30 working desktop computers; we have modified our curriculum to include computer technology where we teach them how to use the computer so our students leave primary school knowing basic computer skills, how to produce a document, know the parts of the computer, we teach them all of that.

“We commend the support from the business community, all the persons that we do business with contribute towards our initiatives — the church, the Quaker family, the community, and parents. Their level of interest in the school has enabled us to push and get things done,” said Lewis as he indicated plans to go solar at the school to reduce the electricity cost.

He said the National Education Trust has contacted the school about going solar and is now doing evaluation, procurement and evaluation.

— Everard Owen