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St Elizabeth to host 'timeout' school
for violent kids
April 17, 2009
By Luke Douglas
editorial@jamaicaobserver.com
AS a measure to combat violent and
delinquent behaviour among schoolchildren, government will be
establishing a new residential institution to transform children
with severe behavioural problems.
A venue in Alligator Pond, St
Elizabeth, is targeted to house the institution, which will
initially cater to 40 boys and 10 girls.
"The Ministry of Education has
decided on a timeout facility for disruptive students. This facility
will come on stream in September of this year," special advisor to
the education minister Alphansus Davis announced Wednesday.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry
of Education, Audrey Sewell, told the Observer that school
principals have indicated that there were a number of maladaptive
students in their schools who continuously disrupt the learning
environment.
"They have seen where when these
children are not around the learning environment is quite different,
so we took the decision to have a facility where we can put those
children over a period of time and work with them (disruptive
students) to address some of the behavioural problems," Sewell said.
The permanent secretary said the
new institution would have a high school curriculum but with special
staff and facilities. She said it is expected that students will
spend about three months in the facility, after which they would be
reintegrated into their original school or in another institution if
it is their best interest that they be reassigned elsewhere.
"The children there will be treated
on a case by case basis," Sewell said.
The permanent secretary said the
ministry was comfortable with proposed location, which is a "small
hotel" in Alligator Pond. She said other facilities were looked at,
including two in Westmoreland and Tranquility Bay in St Elizabeth,
which formerly housed a controversial reformatory school for
delinquent American children. Tranquility Bay, which is known for
its harsh "tough love" programmes, was reportedly the subject of
several lawsuits before it was closed down in January.
Sewell said the students for the
new school would be selected from the existing Programme for
Alternative Student Support, which provides intervention for
students with behaviour problems.
Davis also disclosed that the
ministry approved the establishment of deans of discipline in high
schools, and that an agreement has been reached with the
organisation Peace and Love in Society to train schools in dispute
resolution.
The ministry officials were
participating in a youth forum staged Wednesday at the Mico
University College in Kingston in collaboration with the Ministry of
National Security under the theme 'Promoting a Culture of Security
and Safety in Schools'.
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