Slow rehabilitation work hampers Manning’s School’s reopening plans

WESTERN BUREAU:

Steve Gordon, principal of the Savanna-la-Mar-based Manning’s School, in Westmoreland, says that a shortage of building materials is jeopardising rehabilitation work at the 286-year-old institution, which was extensively damaged by the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 3.

As a result of the delay in completing repairs, the principal is expecting a challenge when the full cohort of students return next Monday to face space constraints among other issues.

“The shortage of material is holding up the project. I was expecting that it would have been completed already but it is yet to be done,” Gordon told The Gleaner on Tuesday. “The contractors are telling me that they are out of material and that materials should be coming in from Kingston shortly.”

Gordon said the rehabilitation work has just reached the last building, which houses four classrooms, which is at 75 per cent completion.

“Based on where they were last week, I was anticipating that they would have completed it over the weekend and that is yet to be done,” said Gordon. He outlined the scope of the rehabilitation work which includes repairs to damage done to the roof of the auditorium and the roof of a block of classrooms.

While the 2024-2025 academic year started on September 2, the facility’s approximately 1,700 students were forced to stay home most of the days as they could not all be accommodated at one time. Based on the school’s schedule, all the students are to report to school on Monday.

“The good thing about this week is that we are staggering the return of the students by their forms, so they are coming in on separate days,” said Gordon. “We have enough space to put them for this week, but when schools reopen next week with full resumption, if the contractors are not finished with the project, we will be in a pickle.”

Like Manning’s School, two other century-old institutions, Munro College and Hampton School, which are both based in St Elizabeth, also suffered severe damage from the hurricane, and are now undertaking repair works with assistance from past students.

In the case of Munro, the 168-year-old institution, referred to as ‘the city on a hill,’ sustained damage estimated at more than J$300 million as 31 of the 35 buildings on the school’s compound were affected.

At Hampton, a school restoration fund has been launched to generate resources to assist with the repairs as the extensive damage has negatively affected the school’s capacity to function normally.