Of principals, deadlines and public defender

Keith Noel, Contributor

The popular Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships is not without its problems and ever so often some groups rage against the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), the organisers of the meet. Many people seem to forget that ISSA is really a group of principals who have got together to organise sporting competitions between their schools. Simply that. Nothing more. In order to ensure the smooth running of the competitions, the group has drafted and agreed upon a number of rules.

This year, the attack on ISSA is based upon the idea that these rules violate the constitutional rights of the students in the schools. If I am to believe the public defender, if a school finds itself in breach of one of the rules, and if that rule states that the consequence of this is that the school must withdraw from that year's renewal of the competition and the principal agrees to do so, he/she is in breach of the student's inalienable human and constitutional rights. Now, as the gentlemen at the heart of this year's controversy are all prominent lawyers, this seems to give some justification to ISSA's decision not to carry disagreements among their members to court.

A school has a track team, they compete during the year at a number of track meets, but because of a blunder made by school administration, they must miss the premier meet. This is a disappointment, but that is all. The argument about missing scholarships is fallacious as the best athletes would have already recorded their fast times and distances at previous meets that year. Elva Goulbourne never lost out because Dinthill did not participate!

In my years as a school administrator I have heard of cases where, because of an error made on a school's entry form, students have been entered for a wrong subject in the Caribbean Examination Council exams. Now this is serious. This is the students' external school examinations! The error could cause one of the students not to be able to have that subject qualification which would qualify him/her to pursue a career goal. The schools, in these cases, have done all in their power to soften this blow to the student, but without any lawyers growling on television!

I am reminded of situations where a child, having worked very hard preparing for a Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) music, dance or drama competition, or a sporting event, is told by his or her parent that, because the family would be inconvenienced otherwise, the child has to withdraw from the event. I rather suspect that the logic of the public defender would have that parent charged with having violated the child's constitutional rights? What constitutional 'right' does a child have to run at a particular track meet, sing or dance at a particular concert, or act in a particular play?

hurt and disappointed

As parents, we sometimes make blunders which cause children to be very hurt and disappointed. As teachers, acting in loco parentis, we sometimes do the same. The administration of the schools which caused their student-athletes to miss champs have blundered. Principals are heavily burdened and most delegate things like seeing to sports entries. It is easy, in a hectic term, to forget to monitor the person in charge of the entries for this sports meet, or the entries for any number of JCDC festival competitions, or the buses for any number of school trips, when one has to be on the ball where instructional leadership is concerned. Or do we forget the priorities we give our principals?

The principal and his small leadership team run a complex organisation.

So, although the principals of the schools are ultimately responsible for sending in entries for Champs, it really does pale if he/she is struggling with concerns about the light bill and the fact that water lock-offs have started and no one is coming to fill your water tanks.

Keith Noel is a retired educator. Send comments to columns@gleanerjm.com.