Battered schools, resilient results

WESTERN BUREAU:

Before Beverley Feare could prepare her students for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, she first had to find them.

Hurricane Melissa had torn through the communities served by Maud McLeod High School in eastern Westmoreland, damaging the school, displacing families, and cutting communication with students at a critical point in their preparation for the examinations.

Feare, the school’s principal, responded by launching ‘Rescue 2.0’, mobilising members of her team to travel into communities, including White House, Beeston Spring and Darliston, in search of students.

They carried food and care packages. Some students had lost their cell phones and could no longer be reached using the school’s contact information. Others needed clothes.

“We had to literally go to re-register them,” Feare told The Gleaner.

The grade-11 students were back in school by November 24. For younger students unable to return, the school printed lessons and established community distribution points where teachers delivered work, collected assignments, marked them and returned them.

Months later, Maud McLeod recorded an overall CSEC pass rate of approximately 73 per cent, up from almost 63 per cent last year.

Mathematics, which stood at zero per cent two years ago before climbing to 35 per cent last year, rose again to 43 per cent. English Language jumped from 62 to 83 per cent, while social studies moved from 13 to 45 per cent.

Five subjects – physical education, information technology, visual arts, electronic document preparation and management, and Caribbean history – recorded 100 per cent passes.

Across western Jamaica, other schools battered by Melissa have also emerged from the June 2026 examinations with impressive results.

100 PER CENT CAPE at Mt Alvernia

At Mount Alvernia High School in Montego Bay, where Melissa destroyed 14 classrooms, the guard house, school gate and the building housing the nurse’s station, CSEC candidates achieved a 95 per cent overall pass rate, while the CAPE cohort recorded a perfect 100 per cent.

Nine CSEC subjects achieved 100 per cent passes, while mathematics jumped by more than 16 percentage points to 84 per cent.

The achievement came after teachers worked with little or no Internet connectivity and without a staff room. Parents, students, past students and other supporters helped to clean the campus, allowing classes to resume just two weeks after the hurricane.

“Our teachers carried on with little or no Internet connectivity and no staff room to call their own, and still they planned, still they taught, still they showed up for our girls,” principal Kayon Whyne said.

Whyne said the results belonged to an entire school community and, particularly, to “girls who refused to let a storm decide their future”.

Cornwall climbs to 90 PER CENT

At Cornwall College, CSEC performance increased from 82 per cent last year to 90 per cent this year, while CAPE held firm at 91 per cent.

Principal Michael Ellis said several critical buildings remain in disrepair, while teaching and learning were severely disrupted after Melissa.

Classes had to be rotated, and some grades remained at home while emphasis was placed on examination and upper-school students. Some boys had nowhere to live and could not attend school, while others lost textbooks and learning material.

Despite the disruption, the administration made what Ellis described as the “very unpopular decision” to recommend that the boys sit both Papers 1 and 2, although they had been given the option of sitting Paper 1 only.

“Clearly, this decision has paid off,” he said.

Mathematics, which Ellis said had proved “a little elusive” over the years, was among the subjects showing improvement.

He credited teachers, parents, the board and alumni, who provided support in cash and kind, with helping Cornwall College stay the course.

Grange Hill’s Mathematics leap

Grange Hill High School in Westmoreland also recorded a dramatic turnaround in mathematics, moving from a four per cent pass rate last year to 71 per cent this year, according to information provided to The Gleaner by principal Trevine Donaldson-Lawrence.

The school faced major disruption after Melissa, with students displaced and communication crippled in some communities.

According to Donaldson-Lawrence, school personnel conducted community walk-throughs to locate students and collaborated with churches, where small classes were held until students could return to school.

For Feare, the results at Maud McLeod are particularly significant, given where the school started.

She had hoped mathematics would cross the 50 per cent mark this year. It stopped at 43 per cent, but after moving from zero to 35 and now 43 per cent in successive years, she is encouraged.

And after a year in which finding some students was once more urgent than teaching them, simply getting them to the examination room was an achievement in itself.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com