Jullett Frazer-Sadaar - ready for the challenge
Published:Saturday | March 15, 2014 | 12:00 AM
Orantes Moore, Gleaner Writer
For the past two decades, Jullett Frazer-Sadaar has taught at St Mary High School in Highgate, St Mary, an institution ranked in a 2008 survey of GSAT students as the eighth-best secondary school of choice on the island.
In January 2014, Frazer-Sadaar was appointed principal of the school, which has a long-standing reputation as the parish's most prestigious high school and whose alumni includes JLP Senator Robert 'Bobby' Montague, journalist and broadcaster Owen James, and chart-topping artiste Tanya Stephens.
Although she has worked as a teacher of English, head of department, and vice-principal, Frazer-Sadaar, 48, admits that adjusting to the new role has been challenging.
She told Rural Xpress: "It is inspiring and enjoyable but hectic in a sense because the job is multifaceted. The teachers here are great. They work extremely hard and have been really supportive, so I'm liking it."
Naturally, the new headteacher hopes to maintain and build on the high standards set by her predecessors. But what does Frazer-Sadaar believe is the most important element in the management of a successful high school?
"Discipline," she said confidently. "For years, this school has been perceived as one that focuses on the discipline of its students who understand they have responsibilities and there are consequences if these are not met.
Standard of behaviour
She added: "At every opportunity, we try to teach our students decorum, etiquette, and social skills and have a programme recognising and awarding the exhibition of such skills, so they know we expect a certain standard of behaviour and performance.
"We have value-driven rules to guide their behaviour and try to make them understand the reasoning behind the rules. As a traditional high school, we have a great responsibility to lead the nation."
Frazer-Sadaar, who is a St Mary native, takes her role as a nation builder seriously and believes that if Jamaica is to flourish in the 21st century, its citizens must re-evaluate their views on education.
She said: "We have to create new standards for ourselves and get people to understand that our children will not be successful unless there is a change in the culture.
"People have to be re-socialised about what and who they are responsible for, and if this doesn't happen, Vision 2030 is just going to be a wish that will never be realised.
"It's the teachers, not politicians, who have a unique responsibility to develop a nation. Everybody - the politician, the banker, and the policeman - passes through our hands.
"We have come to view the police and politicians as agents of transformation, and I'm not saying they don't have a responsibility, but when you leave out the education system, you only perpetuate the issue and create more problems for yourself."
The principal is particularly concerned with steering young men in the right direction and helping them to stay focused.
"We are not socialising our boys well," she explains. "A boy has to be able to hold his liquor before he has reached the age where he can legally consume liquor and has to have multiple girlfriends to show the world he is not a homosexual.
"And so we have a problem with that boy in school because he recognises that society respects him more if he can demonstrate that he is not a nerd or too quiet. He must go out there and act like 'a man'. We're killing our children."
St Mary High was originally built to accommodate 1,200 but caters for 1,600 students. While Frazer-Sadaar acknowledges that lack of space is an issue, she believes poor parental guidance and general indifference by adults is a far greater problem.
"It's not the overcrowded classrooms that militate against the high performance of our children; it's the value system and culture of the country.
"The country doesn't know how to grow up children, and that's one of the biggest problems we have. Parents cannot expose their children to just about any and everything without any sanctions when laws are broken and then expect the very best from them."