Last night we reported on the trouble at Sadie Vernon High School where classes were cancelled because teachers refused to teach. It was in protest of the administration’s suspension of teacher Kendle Esquivel. The school’s teachers returned to school this morning but for the first two periods they again refused to teach because the Ministry of Education hadn’t lifted the suspension of teacher Esquivel. We visited at 10 am and found a campus in chaos.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Classes were again in a state of suspended animation this morning at Sadie Vernon High. Teachers were in the staff room and students were out of class and once again caught in the middle of a feud between the school’s principal and teachers.
Third Form Student,
“Two days now, it will be two days today, that we aren’t learning nothing. My mom sends me to school everyday to learn something. My mom doesn’t just pick up the money and say to go bad ‘bout yourself. She works hard for it, just like how we are going to school and they are getting paid to just sit down in the staff room and do nothing. We are missing out on our thing. This is the last week for second term and we haven’t learnt anything. We haven’t made up our grades or nothing. Just now they came in and said to come in and sit down now because it is time to learn. We sat down in class for 20 minutes and we still nuh learn nothing. The blackboard is blank and the teacher is at the door talking to students. But we are the bad ones, always they say we bad.”
Ishell – 3rd Form Student
“I nuh the vote for my teacher or my principal. I don’t really know exactly what is the problem why we are going through this but I want to ask them to please teach we. This is the end of second term and a lot of students have missing grades which we have to make up. All we want is for them to teach. If they have problems, they need to work it out. All of them are big man and woman.”
Tyrone Nunez, 3rd Form Student
“All the money we are paying the institution they are wasting it now
because they have an issue with the principal and now they are making the student body suffer for that.”
Second Form Student,
“If they have an issue with the principal, let them take it to the principal. They don’t have to take it out of the students because we need to learn. At the end of the day they will get the money and we get nothing. So we are suffering at Sadie Vernon and we want this to stop today.”
The teachers – who wouldn’t talk to us today – returned to the classrooms at third period. But that was easier said than done. These students say the problem isn’t the principal – it is the teachers.
Tyrone Nunez,
“They want to apply rules and punishment to us and they themselves don’t want to have no discipline. They want to be like this, like what my mom always tells me, do as I say and not as I do. You can’t be a leader or a teacher and just tell us to do something and you don’t do the same thing. You have to show us example.”
Second Form Student,
“The teachers tell the students things and when you answer them back, they come and give you a lot of demerits and when we take it to the principal, it looks like they don’t like us and they tell us all kind of things. They respect us first.”
Ishell,
“The reason why the students are disrespectful is that they are disrespectful as well. You have to give respect to gain respect. I am a student and if they disrespect me, I am not saying I won’t disrespect them back but I know how far to go. If they tell me I am stupid, I will say same to you or just give me whatever amount of demerits and I take the matter to the principal or whatever.
Same like how the teachers can go on the news, we the students can explain and tell them how we feel. After this we will have a lot of them who won’t like us. Even if we need two points to pass their class they won’t give us because of what we are doing right now but I don’t care because I am smart and I am very intelligent. I have a lot of skills, I have a lot of talent, so even if they kick me out of school, no teacher can’t kick you out of school but I know we will suffer after this. I name Ishell.”
But these students say the ultimate consequence will be to Sadie Vernon High’s already tarnished image.
Ishell,
“Nobody will want to come to Sadie Vernon. They already look at Sadie Vernon as a low rated school, they look at Excelsior the same way. Now we are trying to uplift ourselves and make them know that not because our school name Sadie Vernon and they accept students who didn’t pass the PSE and they come here, we want them to feel that….we know we are not in class with Palotti and Catherine’s and those schools but every where you go you get an education. I don’t think this right.”
Tyrone Nunez,
“All they are doing is promoting a bad image of the school. They are making our school look completely stupid in the eyes of the public. The public is watching us as if we don’t have any kind of morals or norms or set values inside this school like we don’t have no expectations or nowhere to go if they continue like this.
They are trying to put us out of school, they are trying to enforce rules to put us out on the street. And what will happen after that? We will get out and continue the crime and violence that is happening out there. We will go out there, get frustrated because we don’t have no job, have nothing to do because we didn’t finish school and then after that we are going to rob or kill somebody, end up in jail or end up dead.”
We stress that it was the students who approached us and asked for the opportunity to voice their concerns about the situation. The teachers say they were coached by the principal; we detected no evidence of that. The teachers meanwhile say they returned to the classroom on advice of Chief Education Officer Chris Aird. They say they have been assured that the issues will be addressed. As for teacher Kendle Esquivel, he is still suspended and has sought legal advice.
