Forgotten learners
Special-needs institutions struggle to recover months after Melissa
Published:Monday | March 9, 2026 | 12:06 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Months after Hurricane Melissa tore through western Jamaica, administrators and students at several special-needs institutions remain in a desperate battle for survival, grappling with a sluggish recovery that threatens to derail the education of the nation’s most vulnerable learners.
One St Elizabeth-based early childhood institution has remained shuttered since the passage of the devastating storm, whose name the World Meteorological Organization last week struck from its list, while another institution in St Ann has phased its opening.
Administrators told The Gleaner that once-vibrant classrooms were reduced to shells, leaving specialised sensory tools and expensive Braille equipment buried under a mass of debris and twisted zinc.
“The hurricane was terrible for us. Because the space is rented we have to wait on the landlord, so we have not yet resumed operations,” said Madge Sanderson, head of St Elizabeth Education and Therapeutic Centre, which falls under Community-based Rehabilitation Jamaica.
Early intervention
The school, with a staff complement of six, caters to 36 children with special needs, including those diagnosed with autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and cerebral palsy.
It focuses on early intervention, early stimulation, basic education, and self-help activities.
As a result, Sanderson said the institution, which was opened in 2005, has a long waitlist of up to two years.
“We’ve lost a whole lot of things. All of our fine-motor activity equipment; all of our teaching and learning material. We lost a lot of our files, a whole lot of stuff. We lost almost everything. We’re trying to put back the pieces together but it’s taking a whole lot,” said Sanderson.
She said the heart of the Santa Cruz-based facility’s rehabilitative mission was gutted, as the Category 5 hurricane shredded its therapy room and sick bay, leaving both areas in mud-caked ruins.
“The water came in heavy. The place was flooded and the water was about four feet tall. So we lost everything. When we thought that we had prepared and covered the filing cabinets with plastics, thinking that would help, the water came in and messed up everything. We lost the roof. We lost everything,” Sanderson said.
She said the school’s management actively sought to relocate before the hurricane but was not able to do so. That effort has been further flatlined, she admitted.
“The parents are calling, they’re calling, they’re calling, they’re calling. Every day they want to find out what’s going on, to know when we will reopen,” she said.
Sanderson said the school’s management will resort to using tarpaulins on the structure in an attempt to resume.
Still learning
One paternal grandmother, who assumed responsibility for her autistic grandson after his mother died suddenly a year ago, said the school has been her source of strength in caring for the five-year-old boy.
She told The Gleaner that she is still learning how to care for the boy, who was alone with his mother at home when she died.
Her son lives overseas.
“I was at work one day and I got a call to go and pick him up because his mother had passed. From that day in November 2024 I have been taking care of him. His mother’s mother passed when she was four, and his mother passed when he was four.
“I did not know what to do, because it was the first time I was dealing with a special-needs child. I got him into this school here, and they taught me how to take care of him because I did not know. They have him on a routine here and I’ve been following that,” the grandmother said.
She said that thanks to the school’s specialised feeding programme, her grandson finally progressed from a mostly liquid diet to eating solid meals.
He has also grown more verbal, she said, but the temporary closure of the school is threatening to derail his progress.
It’s a challenge. I miss the school, because in the mornings I’d drop him off by 8:20, and by 2 p.m. I’d go back for him, so I would get things done. Now I can’t,” she said.
In Brown’s Town, St Ann, St Christopher’s School for the Deaf is rebuilding slowly.
Principal Lavern Stewart Barnett said the special-needs school was not prepared for a Category 1 hurricane, let alone Melissa.
She said “bare minimum” preparation was done for tropical storm conditions when the Ministry of Education instructed all schools to close.
“We just covered the stuff, pulled them away from the window and left. We were at home waiting days for this hurricane to come. In all that time we could have gone back and prepared, but by then everyone was securing their own homes,” said Stewart Barnett.
In the aftermath, she said the roofs of 90 per cent of the buildings at the school were torn off. There are six buildings on the property.
The school, which up to recent years catered primarily to deaf and hard-of-hearing students ages three to 12, now serves those with multiple disabilities and autism as well as neurotypical.
The school caters to 60 students – 29 students on the primary side and 31 students in the infant department. There are 46 staff members.
“We didn’t save anything. We lost all the IT equipment we recently got. In September, we got a new set of laptops, computers and smart boards from eLearning. We lost everything except the smart boards … we lost everything from the library,” she said.
She told The Gleaner that an underlying termite infestation that had been plaguing the school for years made it easy for the hurricane to do significant damage.
The school’s farm, with multiple crops, was also destroyed in the hurricane that carried wind speed of up to 190 mph.
Stewart Barnett said that of the 260 birds in the school’s broiler unit, 231 were killed in the storm. She said several layers died days later.
“The whole place was just devastated. It was just awful,” she stated.
She said ministry representatives have assessed the damage and repairs have begun while a phased reopening of the school was pursued, taking in some grades.
Tents have been set up on the school’s playfield to accommodate them.
The autistic students had not returned because of a lack of space to house them and the shadows who accompany them.
“The tent would have changed their environment, and they don’t adopt well to change. We didn’t know how it would affect them, so we asked their parents to hold on to them until a classroom is repaired for them to be in,” she explained, disclosing that seven students are affected because of this.
Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Mark Malabver told The Gleaner that “most, if not all” special-needs schools in the west were damaged, especially those in Westmoreland.
He said the JTA has requested data from the ministry on displaced students and those accounted for.
“With special-needs students, the spaces are tailored, given the needs of each student. This is something that has attracted the attention of the JTA and we have been asking the Ministry of Education to provide the necessary data,” he said.
“It’s a difficult time. In the national dialogue, unfortunately, we have all been concentrating on getting back students into the classroom space, but we’ve never really had that dialogue with respect to our special-needs students. So we really need to pivot because they, more than anybody else, will be in need of that type of support going forward,” he noted.
The education ministry acknowledged questions sent by The Gleaner on February 3, but responses were not provided after multiple follow-ups.
Questions sent the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information:
Of the 616-plus schools reported as damaged islandwide, exactly how many are dedicated Special Education Units or standalone special-needs schools?
Can the ministry provide a damage tier (minor, moderate, severe) specifically for special-needs facilities?
How many students with registered disabilities have been confirmed as displaced/unable to attend their home institution since the start of the January 2026 term?
For students whose schools remain closed or severely damaged, what specific host school arrangements have been made that include wheelchair accessibility and specialised staff?
Have specialised teachers and shadow caregivers been reassigned to follow their students to temporary locations, or is there a shortage due to staff displacement?
Will the reconstruction of Priority One schools strictly adhere to the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities accessibility checklist and universal design principles?
What is the projected completion date for the most severely damaged special education facilities, such as the St Christopher’s School for the Deaf or those in the western parishes?