MONTEGO BAY, St James — As board chairman of Irwin High School Nevin Nish winds down his three-year stint he is breathing a sigh of relief that the stabbing death of one student by another, earlier this year, has not derailed significant progress made at the St James-based school.

Nish, who is set to step down in December, believes he is leaving the institution on firm footing and is convinced there has been marked improvement in Irwin High’s operations, which has repositioned it as a desired place of learning.

“The rate of admission to the school has increased so we can’t take any and anybody again. Irwin High is now a school of choice,” Nish told the Jamaica Observer.

“The passes this year for access to Irwin High were the same grades or even higher compared to the likes of Cornwall College and Mount Alvernia. We had the high 200, 300 scores coming out of the Primary Exit Profile,” the board chairman revealed.

He admitted that in April, after young Raniel Plummer was stabbed to death beyond the school gates following classes, there had been some concern about the negative impact this would have on the school’s image and enrolment numbers. He said the dreaded fallout did not materialise, and he credits the stance taken by the school administration after the incident for the turnaround.

“You would have thought that with the very unfortunate death of the young man, things would have gone down. But it has increased so much because the whole style, the whole poise, the whole passes, everything has increased because we said, ‘No more!’,” said Nish.

According to him, there was a renewed push to maintain discipline.

“Most of the students giving trouble were asked to withdraw after their 10 days’ suspension or whatever; things like that. We have been weeding out of the school the negative influences,” the board chairman told the Observer.

Irwin High has a tradition of tackling challenges head-on. Three years ago, before Nish’s time at the helm of the board, the Administration took on the issue of skin bleaching. The then principal sent a wittily worded email to some parents.

The letter noted that the “tone and complexion” of some students’ faces did not match their photo on file. It asked for a medical report from a doctor “concerning the condition as we are not sure if it is contagious”. Parents who failed to provide a doctor’s report were asked to ensure that their children “remain at home until his or her original complexion has returned and when it would have been deemed safe for him or her to be integrated into the school population”.

According to Nish, parents and students got the message.

“From that email went out we’ve had a strong stance against bleaching,” he said.

He also pointed to other gains made in and outside the classroom.

“We’ve been doing very well in All Together Sing [televised singing competition]; right now I think we are in the top five. The netball programme is doing very well; the daCosta Cup footballers didn’t make it to the second round but the under 14, under 16 made it to [the] second round. We’ve seen improvements in subject areas as well,” he said.

He credited the wider school community for the institution’s success.

“From the board, the community, the parent teachers’ association, every facet of the school environment you have to have buy in. When you have one section not pulling then you know the saying, ‘The chain is as strong as its weakest link,’ “ Nish explained.

“We also have collaborations with other stakeholders in society such as the police, and then you find that discipline can be had and maintained, coupled with raising morale,” he added.

As part of a push to boost staff and students’ self-confidence, school administrators gave them a red-carpet welcome to start the school year in September.

“This is very important because you can’t just be having disciplinary actions and strategies in place without having things where students and teachers can express themselves,” Nish stressed.

“Whether it is through having different events or different cultural experiences, sports, it’s about rewarding them with things to boost morale,” he explained.

He said the move clearly paid off.

“Full 360; and as a matter of fact we are in our 20th anniversary right now and the whole school has a different aura,” he related.

Though proud of all that has been accomplished under his watch, Nish wishes he had done more.

“There are some things that we wanted to put in place — infrastructure issues like the sewage — but that didn’t materialise. We also want to build another building to expand on some of our extra-curricular activities because the students are very expressive,” he told the Observer.