-HERBERT MCKENIS/Freelance Photographer
Students of St. James High School in Montego Bay during a demonstration yesterday.
Clinton W. Pickering, Contributor
UNRULY CONDUCT, including the unprovoked use of expletives, blocking of a roadway and attacking a teacher's motor car, marked a demonstration by hundreds of students on the morning shift of the St. James High School in Montego Bay, yesterday.
From the students' standpoint, the issue is one of 'injustice', with the school asking them to pay $800 for an identification badge. Those not having their IDs were not being allowed to enter the school premises. Eleventh-grader Lisa Brown, who acknowledged that she started the placard-bearing protest demonstration, said: "Some of us don't have any ID. The money is too much for us to pay, and it's not properly taken." She said the cost of an ID had moved overtime from $250 each to $500 and now $800.
ID COST $500 NOT $800
St. James High Principal Joseph Williams said that "IDs are not new to the school.
"We started three years ago, I'm here ten months now. The cost of the ID started at $250, I understand, and it's now $500 just for this year. As you know, the cost of things go up." He said that "there is no $800 cost".
According to Mr. Williams: "I am not sure that some of those students out there are genuinely without ID because only the new students would be without IDs now. I've seen long lines there since September, so I would think that most of the students would have taken their IDs." He noted that most of the protesters "would have been here for three or four years now (and) they would not need any ID (as) it's the same ID you use right throughout."
ONLY NEW STUDENTS ARE AFFECTED
Mr. Williams explained that the students "need their IDs to come in because we have been having some problems here."
"Teachers have lost their belongings, taken by so-called students. We have an incident where a bus was damaged and it was said to be done by these students. Of course the perpetrators were wearing the school uniform, but a few have been caught, and they are not genuine students."
Mr. Williams added: "I've got several calls from supermarkets down in the town that our students have come there and robbed things. A boy was almost killed mid-December and it was said that it was our student. He was wearing the uniform but then my guidance counsellor, who has been here for years, saw the boy and said he is not a student."
He said the ID is "how we need to deal with it to ensure that only registered students come onto the compound."
