ST THOMAS, Jamaica — Principal of the Morant Bay Primary School in St Thomas, Fay Lindsay, is optimistic that the National Rural School Bus System will help to solve the punctuality challenge facing the student population.

“I am hoping that it (the school bus) will improve attendance. One of our issues for last year was punctuality, and this was because students had challenges in getting taxis and buses to school. So, I am hoping that this will help with our punctuality goal [and] that more students will be coming to school on time,” Lindsay told JIS News in an interview.

Currently, Route SB40 serves the parish with a scheduled departure as early as 5:40 am from Albion. It then travels through Yallahs, Morant Bay and Lyssons before arriving in Pear Tree River, far east in the parish.

The schools being served by this route are the Grants Pen Primary and Infant School, the Lyssons Centre for Excellence, Lyssons Primary, Morant Bay High, Morant Bay Primary, Port Morant Primary, White Horses Primary and Infant, Yallahs High; Yallahs Infant, and Yallahs Primary.

For the first two months of service (September and October), the students will be transported free of cost.

With a feasible solution to ignite better school attendance among students,  Lindsay said the new academic year is showing great promise in other areas at Morant Bay Primary.

“It has been good, so far. We put in a lot of preparation before this day, hence we have a smooth running, so far. Based on our school culture, the students are well taught by our teachers, so those returning students are already sticking to their regular routines of walking in lines, being kind to each other and being respectful,” she said.

“For the new grade-one students and new students, too, we have a special programme for them where we’re still reinforcing some of those activities that were taught during orientation week,” Lindsay added.

She also indicated that the students are enthused and seem ready for the new school year.

“As a matter of fact, there was one student whose mother told me that he was up from 4:00 this morning asking when it would be time for him to go to school. The students are really excited; you can see it by their actions that they are really happy to be back to school,” the principal said.

Some of the plans for the Morant Bay Primary School this school year, include upgrading the library, revamping online learning, improving the space designated for parents, training students in digital literacy, maintaining the school’s garden, improving the gifted learner programme, and improving the sports curriculum with a plan to introduce baseball.

– JIS