Teacher paid for nine years without assignment gets reinstated
Published:Tuesday | November 25, 2025 | 12:12 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
A demand by the Ministry of Education for a Westmoreland teacher to repay $18 million in alleged unearned salary has collapsed following the teacher’s move to seek the court’s intervention, resulting in a settlement.
Sandra McNeil, through attorney Hugh Wildman, applied for leave to seek judicial review after the ministry ceased paying her salary and claimed she had abandoned her job at Grange Hill High School in Westmoreland.
McNeil asked the court to declare that she remained a teacher in the government service, was entitled to full pay, and could only be removed under the Education Regulations of 1980. She also sought orders quashing the decision to discontinue her salary and compelling the ministry to resume payment pending the outcome of her application.
McNeil began teaching at the Westmoreland Housecraft Training Centre in 1994 and was permanently appointed in 2002. She was seconded to Shortwood Teachers’ College between September 2013 and April 2014.
When the training centre closed, she sought clarification from the regional director in March 2014 and said she was verbally instructed by an education officer to begin teaching at Godfrey Stewart High School in May 2014.
She was reassigned again in September 2014 to Maud McLeod High School and later to Grange Hill High, where she said the education officer told her she would be permanently placed. However, the school’s principal was initially unaware of her posting, leaving her unassigned for a period.
She received eight months’ vacation leave from September 2015 to April 2016 and said she resumed duties in May 2016, but again found herself unassigned after the summer break.
McNeil said she was then told she would be transferred to Savanna-la-Mar High, which she described as a private institution.
On arrival, the principal was reportedly not expecting her, but was assigned a timetable. Shortly after, the principal summoned her about her manner of dress, including concerns about her jewellery and pants.
McNeil said the education officer later instructed her to go home, and assured her the matter would be resolved. She said she followed up repeatedly but was never reassigned.
She said the education officer assured her that she remained permanently employed at the Westmoreland Housecraft Training Centre, which, though closed, remained on the ministry’s list of functional schools.
She received her salary up to June 2025. However, on July 31, she learnt of a letter about her employment status via WhatsApp from another teacher. Soon after, she received an email from Lincoln Johnson, senior director in the ministry’s compliance unit, stating she had improperly received $18,057,668.42 in payments and should repay it within 14 days.
McNeil said Johnson later requested a meeting at her home or the Savanna-la-Mar Library, which she found “unacceptable and offensive”. She said her attorney contacted the ministry, the education officer, and the permanent secretary, but no resolution was reached.
Johnson, listed as the second defendant, stated in his affidavit that McNeil was among three teachers on a voluntary relocation list from the Housecraft Centre. He said records showed her last workplace as Grange Hill High, and that she was not listed in the attendance register for April 2024 to March 2025. The register indicated her last recorded attendance was September 30, 2016.
Johnson said there was no evidence she worked elsewhere afterwards, yet she continued receiving salary payments from October 2016 until June 2025.
“I then concluded my investigation into the matter and forwarded the relevant findings to the necessary parties. I made no decision and did not participate in the decision, as alleged by McNeil, to discontinue the payment to her,” Johnson said.
In her two-page affidavit, Michelle Pinnock, the ministry’s regional director for Region Four – which consists of the parishes of St James, Hanover and Westmoreland – said McNeil was last placed at Grange Hill High School and was last recorded as having attended work on September 30, 2016.
She cited the Educations Regulations 1980, stating that the principal and every member of staff of a public education institution shall on each day which she is present sign her name in the appropriate register of attendance and insert in the appropriate place, the time of arrival and departure from duty.
“Sandra McNeil, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief has not done so since 2016. Further, she has not worked at any teaching institution from September 30, 2016, to the date of this affidavit – or at all,” she said.
She said although McNeil “failed” to attend any school since September 30, 2016, she continued to receive her salary up until June 2025.
On Monday, McNeil told The Gleaner that the ministry decided to settle the matter after she filed the claim in the Supreme Court.
“The matter was before the courts and the ministry was saying that I abandoned my job; and then after filing the [claim], they agreed on paying me my two months’ salary, which they had stopped,” she said.
“Over the nine years, I was being paid even though I was not placed, and then for the last two months, which was July and August, they had stopped paying me; so that was one of the reasons why we had to go to court. That and the $18 million. The matter was settled because they decided to pay me my salary,” she said.
She said she has since resumed duties at Grange Hill High.
“That’s what I really wanted, because it’s not that I did not want to work. I wanted my job. So, the fact that I’m placed in a school now, I’m satisfied,” McNeil said.