A story of faith and perseverance was shared by Collin Hall, principal of Priory Primary School in St Ann, who told the Jamaica Observer last Wednesday how the institution has managed to push on for the best interests of the more than 600 students enrolled, despite not recovering fully from the ravaging of the category five Hurricane Melissa on October 28 last year.

Hall took the Observer on a tour of the school, to point out infrastructure that was damaged during the hurricane, that is yet to be repaired.

“We are at the border of damage and mess. We are the ones you would consider to be just at where Melissa started to do her bad work. I want you to see the extent of the damage. We have blown out windows. All of these windows need replacing. The roof of the grade six building was affected as well. It’s not yet repaired. Hopefully we’ll get that done before September,” Hall explained.

A tent that was used as classrooms following severe damage to infrastructure at Priory Primary School in St Ann (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

The principal pointed to a block at the school that was under construction. The three classrooms located on that block, along with the guidance counsellor’s office, did not withstand the test of Melissa.

“This is our grade three, and grade one classrooms. The guidance counsellor’s office was down at the end of the block. The entire thing was destroyed by Melissa,” he said. “It was damaged from Hurricane Beryl in 2024, but Melissa came and finished the job properly. They had to take down the entire building and start from scratch, pretty much.”

A block which houses classrooms and an office at Priory Primary School in St Ann that is undergoing construction ahead of the resumption of classes in September. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

Hall expressed that based on his estimation and from the feedback given by other principals, only schools in western Jamaica possibly suffered worse damage than his school and other institutions in St Ann.

“This block that you see over here is the grade four block in yellow. All the windows on that side were affected. As a matter of fact, we just recently finished cutting up all the trees in the back that fell down on the building, almost a year later. A tent was erected to host some classrooms. We got this through the education ministry. Based on my reasoning with other principals, the damage is extensive. A school like mine that has three classrooms destroyed is pretty much on the back burner. We had 26 classrooms in total and lost five, but we were able to use two of them somewhat,” he explained.

“All of these windows you see here were damaged because of the storm. That concrete roof that you see there was damaged because of the storm. All the trees fell on the roof. We had to get private help and parents help us a lot. We would have carted out maybe more than 30 or 40 truckloads of debris after the storm. All around here had trees and we had to remove them.“

Officials at Priory Primary School in St Ann are keeping their fingers crossed that classroom renovations will be completed in time for the September resumption of classes. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

He continued: ”I was just speaking to the contractor. The number of schools and the material that is needed to repair these schools is difficult to come by. So the work is taking a longer time than it should. As a matter of fact, some of the work would have gone over by more than four weeks,“ Hall said.

Chormine Brown-Henry, one of two vice-principals at Marcus Garvey Technical High School said that the institution was affected in many ways by Melissa.

Classrooms under construction at Priory Primary School in St Ann. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

“Our agro department was damaged. Our industrial arts department was completely out of use. That department had to be re-done. All the walkways, the covering of the walkways were damaged. We have leaking classrooms — most of the classrooms were leaking because of the impact of the hurricane. We had trees falling all over. The grade 12 block was also damaged and had to be retrofitted. We got a lot of help from the National Education Trust. They came in and they did a thorough [review] of the damage, and then they came in and they helped us to get back to where we are now. We are basically ready for September, apart from classrooms that may still have [some] problems that we are working on now like leaking roofs and windows may be a bit damaged. So we need to get those fixed,” she said explaining that the school has two campuses, one in Ocho Rios and the other in Mansfield.

In order to resume classes following Hurricane Melissa, the school’s administration had to move students to the Mansfield campus to facilitate repairs at the Ocho Rios location.

One of the campuses of Marcus Garvey Technical High School in St Ann, where repair work is ongoing (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

“So we had the grade 10s and 11s going to that campus in preparation for exams because we couldn’t have them outside. The staff worked together as a team. I must commend the teachers because we really put hands and hearts together in order to get the students ready for their exams,“ she said. ”This campus houses maybe 800 to 900 students who are in grades nine to 13.“

Brown-Henry shared that she has no major concerns leading up to the resumption of classes in September.

“We are basically prepared,” she said.

Meanwhile, Melissa Maragh-Palmer, vice-principal of the Mansfield campus, told the Observer that she was “hoping and praying to Father God” that there will be no hurricanes hitting the island this year.

Chormine Brown-Henry, one of two vice-principals at Marcus Garvey Technical High School, said that the institution was affected in many ways by Hurricane Melissa (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

“Because we had Hurricane Beryl the year before and we had Melissa last year we are hoping to Almighty God that there will be none this year. We just have to watch and see what happens. But the way things are going now, hopefully there will be none. Really and truly, Hurricane Melissa has set back the education system,” she said.

Maragh-Palmer pointed to how students’ external exams were impacted following Melissa.

“The students were given two options [in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate] — to do paper one or do papers one and two. Some schools in Jamaica chose paper one, while some schools did both papers. Even our internal exams, we had to scale it down a bit because of Melissa. What we have to look at, again, is the students,” she said.

“The students and their communities were gravely affected by the hurricane. So some of them had no clothes, no shoes, no whatever. So we would not want another one because it would push them, set them way back,” she said.

Melissa Maragh-Palmer, vice-principal of the Mansfield campus of Marcus Garvey Technical, told the Observer that she was “hoping and praying to Father God” that there will be no hurricanes hitting the island this year (Photo: Karl Mclarty)