Late start but Oracabessa High’s face-to-face ‘successful’

Despite a water shortage limiting face-to-face classes to just three days last week at Oracabessa High School in St Mary, principal Natrecia Lothian has labelled the first week a success.

A problematic pump at the National Water Commission facility that serves Oracabessa left the community without water for over a week, pushing the start of face-to-face classes back to Wednesday.

Oracabessa High is one of 125 schools that have been allowed to resume face-to-face classes following a two-week pilot programme by the Ministry of Education in November.

Classes at the school are geared only at grade-11 students, with those having to complete SBAs and do practical subjects being the main beneficiaries.

Good Turnout

Lothian said while they were expecting around 75 students each day, 69 turned out on Wednesday, with 76 reporting on Thursday. Rains on Friday would have impacted the turnout that day, but it was estimated to be close to the first day’s total.

And despite a teaching staff that sees about a third of them being affected by co-morbidities, the staff turned out in their numbers as expected.

“I would say it has been a success; I would think very good, actually,” Lothian told The Gleaner on Friday afternoon.

“We are so happy, we are elated, we’re ecstatic that we are allowed to open for the grade 11 so they can complete their School-Based Assessments (SBA),” she added.

“COVID or no COVID, education must continue even though it comes at a great risk. One-third of our staff have co-morbidities, but they are here.”

“That goes to show that we really want what is best for the students. At the same time, we’re trying to protect ourselves, recognising that if one person here has COVID, all of us are exposed. We treat it very, very seriously in terms of following all the protocols laid out by the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Ministry of Education.”

Prior to the resumption of face-to-face classes, about 40 per cent of the student population of 1,203 (approximately 481) were engaged in online learning. The balance, those without devices, had to rely on printed material that the school would prepare and drop off at various pickup points for students to gather.

But there is a particular problem that affects a specific group of students, which one teacher went out of her way to help overcome.

“The biggest challenge we have is Pathway III students who are not able to help themselves, so to speak, in terms of the reading and comprehension and they would do better in a face-to-face environment. So, in terms of the printed material, it’s not doing much for them because they can’t read it. A teacher goes into the communities and finds them and does one-to-one [classes],” Lothian explains.

But with the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations just a few months away, grade-11 students now take priority, with the return of face-to-face classes a timely move, according to the principal.