Classroom canteen for Mount Peto Primary as hurricane repairs drag on

Workmen observed working on the roof of a building behind the yellow building in the foreground, which is said to be the canteen, on Wednesday.Anthony Lewis MOUNT PETO, Hanover — Member of Parliament for Hanover Eastern Andrea Purkiss has expressed concern over the ability of administrators at Mount Peto Primary School to provide warm meals for students, particularly those enrolled in the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), during the new school year which begins on Monday. The school’s canteen lost its roof during the passage of Hurricane Melissa last October and this has not yet been repaired, forcing the administration to transform a classroom into a makeshift kitchen. “It is indeed a great concern because a number of the students that attend the Mount Peto Primary School depend heavily on PATH and they require their warm meals. Of course, if they are on PATH, it means that they might not be able to take lunch to school or to get lunch money to go to school,” argued Purkiss during an interview with the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday. She said on a recent visit to the school she saw a stove and a refrigerator inside a classroom. The inside of the canteen at Mount Peto Primary School in Hanover, which lost its roof during Hurricane Melissa last October, with a tarpaulin still providing the only protection from the elements 10 months later. According to Purkiss, while far from ideal, the arrangement was a last resort for administrators scrambling to ready the facility a few days ahead of the new term that gets under way on September 7. “It is kind of sad to see the principals and the teachers, [and] the workers at the schools running around at this stage to put a canteen together. I believe that the ministry should have ensured that those things are taken care of,” stated Purkiss. “It is unfortunate that with just a few days to the beginning of the school year, principals are running around [trying] to find temporary fixes instead of the ministry coming in and lending a hand and ensuring that some of these critical areas are taken care of and the issues are addressed,” added Purkiss. An Observer news team which visited the school on Wednesday was denied access to take photos as Principal Martel Moodie said he was not granted permission to facilitate the visit. The inside of a classroom that, it is believed, will be used as a temporary canteen at Mount Peto Primary School come Monday, with a tabletop stove, a gas cylinder, and juices. However, the news team was able to obtain photos of the damaged kitchen and the classroom that it is believed will be used as a canteen. There were cases of juice inside. Workmen were also seen working on a building on the compound but there was no indication if or when work would begin on the original canteen building. Meanwhile, Purkiss said other educational institutions across Hanover Eastern are in varying states of repair following the devastation caused by the Category 5 storm. “I can speak to Success Primary — they are at 50 per cent, Gurney’s Mount [Primary] is at 85 per cent — their roof is back on and we are happy for that. At Merlene Ottey [High School, more] work needs to be done. A number of the schools need more attention,” stated the Opposition MP. “Another concern of mine is that the minister of education has not been on the ground [in Hanover] to give the principals, the parents, the assurance that the schools will be ready to take their children at the beginning of the school year,” argued Purkiss. A classroom that, it is believed, will be used as a temporary canteen at Mount Peto Primary School, is also being used as a storeroom for repair material. But Minister of Education Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon on Wednesday told the Observer that she will be visiting the schools in the parish. According to Morris Dixon, she started her school visits in areas that had the most issues as she tried to figure out what was going on. “Westmoreland was really the most damaged parish, and so that’s why I have been in Westmoreland so much more than any other place. Westmoreland has seen so much of me; I now know Westmoreland very well. I feel like I’m a part of Westmoreland now. “But I’m going to visit everywhere again because she [Purkiss] not the only one. A lot of other parishes are like, ‘don’t forget us,’ and so I will be back on the road after we have settled, and I’ll be back on the road to the other parishes to come and see our schools in action,” declared Morris Dixon following a tour of schools in Westmoreland on Wednesday. Speaking with members of the media at Ferris Primary School, following visits to Maud McLeod High and Beaufort Primary schools, in Darliston Morris Dixon said her ministry has learnt several lessons in carrying out the repairs to schools damaged by Melissa. She said the importance of speed and having a review process are among the lessons she has taken from the less-than-smooth process of repairing more than 300 schools damaged by the hurricane. “It was a big undertaking; it’s something that we’ve never done in our history… this kind of scale of repair of our schools and then doing it in terms of resilience. That is a big task, a very difficult task, under very difficult conditions. There were areas that didn’t work as well as we wanted, and then some things went really smoothly,” said Morris Dixon. “It was a mixed bag but the team at NET (National Education Trust) has been very focused on reviewing what’s out there, the contracts, and making sure things are happening. The regions have also been very much a part of it. With all of us working together, I think we have been able to iron out a lot of kinks. There were a lot of kinks in the beginning, as you would have in any kind of emergency situation like this, but I think we’ve been able to iron them out,” Morris Dixon added.