Effortville Primary School, led by Principal Lisa Holmes Shirley, has embarked on a drive to rid it, and by extension, the community, of the stigma of having been a bad place.

Over the years, the Effortville/Farm communities have been blacklisted and referred to as volatile areas where criminals often wreak havoc. Having been labelled as such, economic activity has declined and the school has suffered. However, three years in and the principal and teachers, along with the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), have been making bold strides to erase that narrative.

“Effortville has a stigma attached to the community, and we are aiming to remove the stigma of being a bad community that is plagued by crime and violence, and we are making steady progress in erasing that notion. We aim to be the oasis in the community from which nothing but good flows,” Holmes Shirley told the Jamaica Observer on Teachers’ Day, last week.

The principal said she was pleasantly surprised when the president of the PTA, along with her team, turned up on the campus last week with goodies and food for the teachers.

“I am surprised, we were all surprised. They told us they wanted to do something but they didn’t give us the details; this is solely a PTA initiative; we had nothing to do with it. We’re just here to enjoy,” she said last week.

“We are happy that they have decided to do something because these are the same parents from the community, and if they decide to do something nice for us, it means changes abound. These parents that are treating us today (last week) are the same parents of these children who behave so well at school,” added Holmes Shirley.

The principal explained that the students’ good behaviour at school is an indication that negativity isn’t infiltrating the learning space.

“We have an excellent rewards programme where students who behave well and display honesty and other good characteristics are rewarded with a ticket with points which they can use to purchase a prize from the cabinet. The students behave when they are at school and so we expect that good behaviour to … make an even greater impact on the community,” she told the Observer.

“It is of utmost importance to have the parents working in tandem with the teachers here. We need to work together because all teachers are leaders, and so we have to open our arms to these students from this community. We have to accept that everyone has worth, so an initiative like this that was unexpected, and yet so heart-warming and sweet, must have taken a lot of planning,” she beamed.

Jasmine Jackson, the PTA president, said the teachers deserve to be celebrated.

“We want to show them that they are not forgotten, because in a volatile community such as this, we don’t always get the support we ought to, so we are here to show some love to the teachers. With the stigma attached to this community, I don’t think the teachers are celebrated and appreciated enough, so we, the PTA decided that we’re going to do something for them just to show our love for them because they work so hard with the students,” she said.

Jackson continued to heap praises on the teachers who she described as a dedicated set.

“Teachers are the backbone of society and they don’t get the recognition that they deserve. In my opinion they are underpaid and overworked, so whatever we can do, including this small gesture, to say to them that we recognise their hard work. This is a team effort from the PTA, and we want to go bigger and better next year,” Jackson said, adding that the body she leads believes in the principal’s vision and will continue to work towards achieving that goal.

Brianna Williams has been the guidance counsellor at Effortville Primary for three years.

“This is an amazing school; our teachers are hard-working and dedicated and the guidance committee works very hard to support our teachers and parents,” Williams said.

“We thank the PTA for what they have done for us and my heart is filled with gratitude. This is simply amazing and we thank the team wholeheartedly,” she said, adding that she, too, shares the principal’s dream of transforming Effortville Primary into an oasis.