He now attends a private evening school where he does four subjects for nearly $30,000 a year because that's all his vendor mom, Andrea McKenzie, can afford. But that's not the whole story.
During their rocky relationship with Odaine, Wolmers' discovered that he suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a treatable medical problem. Odaine, a seemingly sure-footed, eloquent and intelligent young man, said he and his mother tried to work with the school.
PROFESSIONAL HELP
After one of his several run-ins with school officials while at Wolmer's, they recommended that Odaine seek professional help.
"They sent me to see a psychiatrist at one of the board meetings, and while going there, she (Dr. Yvonnie Bailey-Davidson) prescribed medication called Ritalin. She said I was hyperactive and the Ritalin would help calm me down," says Odaine.
And it did calm him down. "During the period I was taking the tablets I was doing much better academically and in my behaviour than before," says Odaine.
But during a follow-up meeting with the school's board, a member suggested that he stopped taking the tablets because he was 'looking fat'.
"He was wondering whether it was the tablets that were making me fat, whether it was a side effect."
Odaine says he went back to the psychiatrist and outlined the situation to her and she took him off the Ritalin for a while. But the break was long enough for Odaine to break out again. In about April of last year, Wolmer's told Odaine to march.
BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION CAMP
Upset at the decision, Ms. McKenzie says her son took it upon himself to contact the Ministry of Education about the decision to expel him from Wolmer's. They told him to sign up for the National Youth Service's (NYS) 19-day behaviour modification summer camp programme for troubled teens.
"The ministry suggested that after he went through the programme, they would try to place him in a school," says Ms. McKenzie.
Odaine remembers the programme well.
"We had classes in anger management, conflict resolution, guidance and counselling, social studies and there was a psychologist doing sessions."
Odaine finished the programme, graduated with a certificate and attended a few NYS follow-up workshops with his mother until it was clear that one of their most crucial objectives was not being achieved: getting Odaine into a decent school to continue his education.
Odaine's expulsion from Wolmer's was like a black mark upon him, explains his mother.
"It hard when them do that and him fi get back inna school. It's like you have this doom over you. When you go to other schools, from them hear 'expel' is like them naw take you. It don't even make sense you lie because them going to investigate the background and find out. You would have to know somebody good and they help you out but apart from that, you salt," she told Enterprise from her stall in downtown Kingston.
Her only alternative, she says, was to enroll Odaine in a private school, but "right now I can't even think 'bout private school because that is too expensive," she says.
PROVISIONS NEEDED
The NYS tried, she explained, but she wasn't getting very far so she did what she could as fast as she could. She enrolled Odaine in an evening programme where subjects are provided on demand and on quota at a price way above what would have been provided in the Government school system.
Now she is asking the question: Shouldn't the Government begin to force schools to make provisions for students like Odaine rather than kicking them out on the streets?
Officials from Wolmer's say the decision to expel Odaine was sanctioned by the Ministry of Education, and refused to comment further on the matter. When the Enterprise team contacted the office of Adelle Brown, Chief Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, several times, to invite her comment on the matter, calls were not returned and her assistant indicated that she did not think the ministry kept records on the number of students expelled from schools each academic year.
But experts dealing with these troubled kids in the nation's school system, agreed that the Government will have to start making provisions in schools for students like Odaine, as kicking them out will only compound really serious problems being experienced by many of these students.
"The students in the school system, many of them, especially boys, have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," explains psychiatrist, Dr. Yvonnie Bailey-Davidson. "Some have mild mental retardation and many have behavioural problems due to many different reasons. The most common problem is reading. Many are unable to read, and because of this, they develop behavioural problems. Unless we do assessments of children from an early age, we are going to find a set of students involved in violence and substance abuse as a coping mechanism. That is what I am seeing in my practice of almost 20 years," she says.
"The schools do try, but there are limits and boundaries as to what they can do. The needs of the special students, need to be addressed more. They (authorities) are trying but there is a resource problem."
Last year the NYS launched 'Camp Success' to deal with 'disruptive' students in the nation's school system. The programme involved psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists working with the troubled youngsters to try and turn them around. If by the end of the programme the youngsters showed no sign of improvement, schools would be allowed to boot them. According to the NYS, only 18 of the 202 students who participated in the programme last year did not return to school..
Participating studentsThe majority of the students participating in the NYS behaviour modification programme last summer came from:
Mona High, 37Papine High, 23Edith Dalton James High, 22Excelsior High School, 18.
