MAGGOTTY, St Elizabeth — With five classrooms still windowless, the entire infant department out of use and further electrical and masonry work outstanding, principal of Glen Stuart Primary, Infant and Special Education School Shanika Marshall had little reason to celebrate the start of the new school year Monday.

Nevertheless, she expressed her determination to get her students back in school, and reopened the institution despite having no clear timeline for when the outstanding repairs will be completed.

The school, located behind Maggotty High, is still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, which ravaged sections of the island on October 28 last year.

Major sections of the campus remain unusable, forcing the administration to adopt a hybrid system to accommodate students while rehabilitation work continues.

Marshall told the Jamaica Observer on Monday that the school was expected to have been fully repaired and handed over to her on September 1 but that deadline passed without the work being completed.

“We have been getting support from the Ministry of Education, Senator [Marlon] Morgan visited, and he really did put in a word for us. On Friday we had NET (National Education Trust) and they really would have enquiries or give deadlines to the contractor. I was promised that everything would have been done over the weekend, but here we are, so I can’t say as to when the repairs will be completed.”

She noted that the outstanding work is extensive. Although the roofs have been completed, Marshall said only one block, containing four classrooms, has received new windows. Five classrooms on another block therefore remain unusable, while the entire infant department cannot currently be occupied.

One of the classrooms at Glen Stuart Primary, Infant and Special Education School in St Elizabeth remains without windows as rehabilitation work continues even as the school reopens for the new academic year.

She also said that electrical work, tiling, painting, carpentry on ceilings and masonry are also still required, while the school’s canteen remains out of operation because of ongoing repairs.

The delays have been particularly frustrating for Marshall because the school was among those hardest hit by Melissa. The main campus lost its roofs, the infant department across the road also suffered roof damage, and the institution sustained structural damage.

Yet, rather than postpone the reopening, Marshall and her staff have opted to rotate students between face-to-face and online instruction.

According to the principal, grades one, two, three, and six, along with special education students and kindergarten two pupils were scheduled to attend classes physically on Monday and Tuesday. Grades four and five were being taught online, while from Wednesday grades two, three, and kindergarten two were expected to move to remote instruction to allow grades four, five and kindergarten three students to attend face-to-face sessions.

However, the arrangement is far from ideal, particularly given the community’s connectivity challenges.

Marshall said many of her students had already experienced significant disruption to their education during the COVID-19 pandemic because of poor Internet access and financial difficulties in securing devices and connectivity. Hurricane Melissa then added another layer of upheaval, affecting the homes of more than 90 per cent of the school’s students.

“The guidance counsellor is supposed to be doing devotion and the psychosocial session right now, and I’m here trying to join, and I can’t. So that should really tell you the problem we have. But what we do is that we will send material in the WhatsApp group, where students will be better able to get it there. But the Zoom and the Google Meet and all of that, the connectivity is really a problem,” she said.

Despite those obstacles, Marshall said keeping the students away from school for another week was not an option she wanted to pursue.

Parents had met with her last Friday to discuss the situation, and while some suggested delaying the reopening, Marshall said there was a strong desire among the school community to have the children return.

Marshall said the decision to reopen was also influenced by the need to resume assessment and get teaching and learning back into a more regular rhythm.

“We are really focusing on literacy, because these students would have suffered a lot during COVID. Because, around this area connectivity is poor. We have quite a number of students who are, you know, their whole financial background is of concern, and so, getting devices and Internet access would have been a challenge,” she said.

The school is therefore operating with a clear understanding that the physical challenges have not been resolved, but Marshall said the staff were prepared to work through them.

She credited teachers and other staff for continuing to support students despite the difficult circumstances, while making clear that accepting the situation as satisfactory was not the objective.

“Given the conditions that, especially before, we went on the break that we had to work in and we had to work in… we have seen improvement in our literacy and numeracy at the grade four level and our grade six results as well we have seen improvement, and so, we realise challenges are there, but as a team, we are able to conquer, not that we are going to accept any and anything, but we still have to make it work,” she said.

The school currently has close to 500 students across its primary, infant and special education departments, with 33 academic staff and a complement of auxiliary workers.