KINGSTON, Jamaica— President of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), Mark Smith, has expressed grief over the death of Jessie Ripoll Primary School Principal, O’neil Stevens, describing him as a “true stalwart, a friend, colleague [and] a really dynamic principal”.

The primary school confirmed on Saturday that Stevens and his wife Camesha Lindsay-Stevens were killed in a motor vehicle collision on Friday. The accident reportedly took place in the US state of North Carolina.

READ: Principal of Jessie Ripoll Primary, wife killed in crash

Smith, in a release on Saturday expressed condolences to Stevens’ family and the school community.

“We’re really saddened by the news that O’neil and his wife succumbed to injury sustained in a car accident in the United States,” Smith said.

“And on behalf of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, I extend profound condolences to his immediate family [and] the Jessie Ripoll School community,” he added.

Smith also urged the primary school’s board of management and the leaders of the school to assist with providing support for the students and teachers who would have been affected by Stevens’ passing days before the reopening of school.

“I am being advised that school will be closed on Monday. And I pray for the new leadership to help to stabilise things because of this profound sense of grief that the school has been plunged into, but we continue to monitor the situation,” Smith said, adding that the JTA will also provide support for the Jessie Ripoll school community.

“We have, it’s still very early, and so we continue to provide whatever support that we can as an association and ask that all those that are in a place that permits them to support the surviving family and friends that they do so. And we continue to unite around the Jessie Ripoll school family at this time, and around O’neil and his wife’s family also,” Smith said.