By Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter 
Parents and children attending Alpha Primary School, South Camp Road, central Kingston, head to classes yesterday, following a meeting with the principal on the first day of the new school year. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer
YESTERDAY, THE first day of the new school year, went smoothly in many areas but there were a few frazzled principals, a leaky roof, and several schools on the short end of furniture.
Also, there was an aborted protest. At 7 a.m. in Hanover, irate tool-wielding residents descended on the Cave Valley All-Age School in the March Town community, their children in tow, to avert a demonstration.
Using crowbars, hammers and hacksaw blades, they broke off chains and padlocks which had barred the gates and doors of the school. The residents said the locks had been placed on entrances by persons who were protesting against the appointment of the school's new principal. Those persons had planned their protest for the first day of school.
In Manchester, the principal of the Christiana High School was reported to be coping despite the ongoing trauma of persons using what he called "al Qaida-like" tactics to remove him from office. He said he had had telephone threats, a break-in
at his office and sinister visits to his home over the holidays.
All had been reported to the police.
However, throughout the island, the first day of the new school year, for the most part, passed by like breeze for many schools that re-opened.
At the St. Elizabeth Technical High School, there was a limited number of desks and chairs. Black River High and Santa Cruz Primary School also had similar problems, with the former reporting limited classroom space and the latter still needing additional desks and chairs. Porus Primary, High and Infant in Manchester reported similar problems. In St. Ann, schools such as St. Ann's Bay Primary, Ocho Rios Primary, Ocho Rios High, and Marcus Garvey Technical turned back students seeking admission as there was no space. At Ocho Rios High School, overcrowding was so bad that all the science laboratories and the school library had to be converted to temporary classrooms.
Many students and their parents who turned out in Kingston and St. Andrew did so for orientation sessions and reports were of smooth traffic in many areas.
At St. Aloysius Primary, parents and students turned out for orientation and were dealt with, a representative there said. Parents who went to register students got through and left without much problem, save for there not being enough benches.
At the Allman Town Primary School, the principal said that a lot of parents who the school had not planned for, had gone there to register Grade One students, creating an overflow. Other parents, she said, did not know that school had re-opened and had kept their children away for the day.
She said that a room to house a new Grade One for the overflow students needed to be cleaned out and fixed and she had called on the Ministry of Education to provide furniture.
At the Eltham Park Primary School, St. Catherine, the principal said there was a problem with late registration of students, while in the Grade One classes there is a case of overcrowding.
The Jamaica Teachers' Association says it expects to receive a full report later this week on furniture shortage, and the Ministry of Education, through Edwin Thomas, its information officer, said it was awaiting the full re-opening of school to gauge the extent of the problems.
In St. Catherine, Leeds Primary and Junior High reported a leaking roof. The deputy principal said that this was despite numerous promises from the authorities that the repairs would have been done.
On a more positive note, Camperdown High in St. Andrew opens on September 4, and most students went in yesterday for orientation. Things are also expected to go smoothly at Kingston College, where students had orientation last week and will return on September 9.
Additional information from Gleaner correspondents including Byron McDaniel in Manchester, Rayon Dyer in Black River, Claudia Gardner in Hanover, Ruth Coombs in St. Catherine and Devon Evans in St. Ann.
