School shelter strain
Published:Friday | March 6, 2026 | 12:11 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
Acting Principal of Godfrey Stewart High School Stacey-Ann Ottey Clarke says the school’s administration is disappointed after state agencies failed to honour a January deadline to remove hurricane-impacted shelterees from the school’s compound.
A total of 10 people are still being housed at the school, down from 300 in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, the Category 5 storm that ravaged the island on October 28 last year and displaced thousands.
“We are not pleased about it, and we were hopeful that more persons would definitely come in and find somewhere for these persons to go,” she said.
Although sympathetic to the plight of the hurricane victims, she said their prolonged accommodation at the school, which is located in Westmoreland, is impacting the teaching-and-learning process.
“It is a challenge for us now because we are unable to use a particular section of the D block that would generally have our second formers, third formers, fourth- and fifth- form students,” she said. “If they are utilising the space, we cannot have our students interacting with them, so we have to keep our students on one block and that is a challenge for us.”
The school has been using a rotational operation schedule since reopening to compensate for the now limited space. Approximately 700 of the 1,288 students are accommodated each day.
“Some days we’ll have first- and second-form students coming in, and the other days, we’ll have third and fourth-, fifth- and sixth-formers every day.”
She added: “We have to keep 700-and-odd students on one block, and they have to use the rest room on one block.”
Earlier this week, the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) threatened further action if government agencies fail to present an immediate, time-bound plan to remove hurricane-affected shelterees from school compounds.
While acknowledging mitigation measures implemented by the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, including enhanced safety protocols and monitoring, the association said such steps could not replace the full restoration of schools to their primary function.
“The situation was understandable in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane,” Malabver said. “It cannot become a prolonged or indefinite arrangement.”
The union said the continued housing of displaced persons at several schools had become “untenable” and demanded urgent relocation by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
“Should these demands not be met in a timely manner, the JTA reserves the right to pursue other options to ensure that the Ministry of Local Government and ODPEM take the concerns of educators, students, and parents seriously,” said JTA President Mark Malabver
Data from the ODPEM on March 2 showed that 43 shelters, housing 293 people, remained active across five parishes, 16 of which are schools.
Ottey-Clarke, in the meantime, noted that two blocks on the school’s campus were damaged in the storm but have since been renovated.
She said the school’s administration has also been working assiduously to ensure that most of its students return to the classroom.
“Better days for us now because we utilised the yard-to-yard initiative. We try to go out and find some of our students, but we do have some students who are still out. We have about 16 per cent that we cannot find, but we are searching for them,” she said.