MAY PEN, Clarendon — As the new academic year gets underway, May Pen Infant School is in limbo as the absence of both the principal and the vice-principal stalls the financial operations at the school.

In a telephone interview with Board Chairman Stanley Ramsingh, he noted that the principal is on eight months’ vacation leave effective September 1, 2023, but the vice-principal, who had resigned since September 2022, has not yet been replaced. Consequently, there is no authorised individual from the school administration to approve cheques, which is causing a standstill in paying ancillary staff, stocking the school’s canteen, and purchasing sanitation items.

“The situation really is in terms of signing cheques. You have two persons from the board and two persons from the school; they categorise them as category A and category B. The situation as it stands right here is that we don’t have anyone from category B to sign cheques, which would include either the principal or vice-principal,” he explained.

Ramsingh noted that many attempts were made to replace the vice-principal, but their efforts were futile.

“The vice-principal resigned from last year August, and we did advertise in the school first and then in the press… which make two months of advertisement. We didn’t get enough responses from the first advertisement in the press but we got more from the second advertisement we ran. We started conducting interviews on the 21st of February, 2023,” he explained.

“In early March we sent the recommendation of the candidate to the ministry’s regional office but we did not get any response until the 14th of August. They responded by saying the candidate did not acquire the minimum three years of teaching service required in the public sector to be considered for the post, therefore she couldn’t assume the role of vice-principal,” the board chair further detailed.

Since the principal’s leave was approved, Ramsingh told the Jamaica Observer that the board had recommended that the guidance counsellor, Dian Josephs, serve as the acting principal for eight months. However, the Ministry of Education and Youth has not approved this recommendation because the guidance counsellor is deemed unqualified due to her specialised degree. She holds a bachelor’s degree in guidance and counselling from Northern Caribbean University.

“On the 18th of July when we realised that the principal, Mrs Kim-Cay Brown, had got her approval from the ministry for her eight-month vacation leave to start September, I convened a meeting with the board and we selected the guidance counsellor to act [as principal] in the interim. We sent a letter to the Region 7 representative, Barrington Richardson, on July 27th — with copies of the board minutes — and asked him to expedite the matter,” he noted.

However, after a month of no response from the Ministry of Education, Ramsingh again wrote to the regional representative.

“When I saw that there was no response from the ministry I wrote another letter on the 28th of August and reminded him of the letter dated July 27th, and pleaded with him to expedite the matter because the school needed to buy maintenance materials and pay its ancillary staff. We have funds but we don’t have anybody to sign the cheques,” he said.

He explained that the requisite documents were also sent for the attention of the accountant general to approve the guidance counsellor as a signatory on the account. However, there has not been any urgency to the matter. Ramsingh also believes the ministry’s representative is unaware of the provisions in the Education Act.

“It seems the regional director is not acquainted with the Education Act — Regulation 43, page 51 — because it says that the board has the right to appoint acting positions. The principal has a specialised degree in physical education but she was still appointed as principal. There is some amount of inconsistency because the same office processed the current principal, who has a specialised degree, but cannot process the guidance counsellor to act as interim principal,” he lamented.

When our news team visited the school on Monday afternoon, the orientation session had just ended and the guidance counsellor refused to comment on the matter. Teachers and a few parents were seen on the compound. The school has 10 teachers on staff; there are two vacancies.