Between yesterday and this morning - the Facebook posts came streaming fast and furious: Students at Julian Cho Technical High School in Toledo had been chanced out of their choice for graduation guest speaker because of politics.
The story went that they wanted Leader of the Opposition, Shyne Barrow to speak - and the politically controlled school board - shut that down. And indeed from what we've been able to find out the board is indeed chaired by Minister Oscar Requena's driver, Leonardo Cal. So, that's it right? Case closed, it has all the looks and appearances of the usual political railroading, using children as pawns, and not allowing them freedom of choice or their democratic freedom to hear from all sides. And while all those things may be at play, for young people, it's never quite that straightforward.
So, while politicians will draw out the conflict in red and blue, for the students there are a whole lot of shades of grey, and that grey maybe for apathy. Students we spoke to directly via zoom say there wasn't much of a choice and most of them didn't even vote.
Edmeir Nerio, Student, Julian Cho High School
"It started, they had about 5 options for guest speaker Dr. Hon Shyne Barrow, there was I don't remember his name but there was a principal from some San Miguel R.C. school and there is another Dr. who I don't remember her name bt she, I believe she writes a book about the east Indian culture or something like that and then there was the former principal of Julian Cho who is Simeon Coc."
"To be honest with you I did not vote for any due to the fact that I didn't see them as someone I want to in the further in the near future I would say I will take thier words and I will always keep that in my head and you know live by it so when the votes came about it started off with Mr. Simeon and I don't recall having a lot of votes for any one of them. The one with the most was honorable Dr. Shyne Barrow which was about 48 to fifty votes so it was not decided by the entire 205 students that participated in that meeting and that was how Hon. Dr. Shyne Barrow was selected as our guest speaker."
Wayne Moore Jr III, Student, Julian Cho High School
"We were called in to have a meeting with the students and over 200 of us were there and we had I believe it was five or six guest speakers we listed and Shyne Barrow was one of them then they had more but in terms of Shyne Barrow we had at least, it wasn't half it wasn't half of the amount of students that were there. I would say from mostly two classes raised thier hands that made the majority of the votes for Shyne Barrow. But after that we were dismissed and then the student body, student council they went and decided on thier own and I believe I don't know if they went to talk to Shyne Barrow or something like that but that was basically the situation."
"Because where I was sitting they were like they were joking around they were laughing and everything and then some raised thier hand in like, thier friend raised thier hand so they raised thier hand too so that's how it came up."
Edmeir Nerio, Student, Julian Cho High School
"It was yesterday when I first saw the first post about this whole commotion and I honestly don't know when that came about when they decided oh this is not a good idea. I don't have any idea about what's going on. Today I was at school doing my english CXC and word came out that tomorrow there will be another election for our guest speaker so I have no idea what's going on."
"Me personally I have, like I have no feelings toward this it's just it was the majoity who voted for him well that's who I gwen for."
Cherisse Halsall:
"The Impression that we are getting in the public is that students of thier own free will made a choice and the school said well we aren't going to agree with these students because we don't feel that person is apporpriate, is that what happen?"
Wayne Moore Jr III, Student, Julian Cho High School
"All they told us was that Shyne Barrow will not come and that we need to choose somebody else so they didn't give a description of what happend if they talked and he said no or they said no so i'm not sure about that."
As you heard the student body will take a new vote tomorrow and it remains to be seen whether the leader of the opposition will even be an option this time around. We'll keep you posted.
We made a number of attempts to reach the chairman of the school board, both by phone call and via text - but at newstime he had not responded.
