Mel Cooke
Star Writer

This academic year, Carl Morris, a fine-arts teacher at Tivoli Gardens Comprehensive High School, was appointed form teacher of a grade-nine class. He says each student is a triple handful, making for a high-pressure situation. "I have been tried, tested and proven," Morris told THE STAR emphatically.

This year, too, Peace and Love in Society (PALS) was introduced at Tivoli, one of 15 high schools across Jamaica in which the programme has been implemented in the first phase of a five-year memorandum of understanding between PALS and the Ministry of Education. Ninety primary and junior high schools are also involved in the project.

Changed approach

PALS trainer, Rosemarie Thomas, has been coaching the Tivoli teachers, Morris telling THE STAR he was part of a session with her on Tuesday. His form-teacher role is the primary reason for attending the sessions and, in the process, he has changed his approach and classroom strategies.

"It has helped. In terms of strategising, I am going out there in another way than I was before," he said. Referring to a PALS chart on anger styles, he said that before, he was a 'hip-shooter', coming out blazing. Now he is a 'firefighter', performing cooling-down operations.

Hip-shooters readily express their anger, are very direct, truthful, impulsive and volatile. Firefighters' on the other hand, know how to put out the fire of anger, to take time to cool off, ventilate and understand the source of their anger, see a problem from another person's perspective. and attack the problem and not the person.

"When I cool down, I work towards solving the situation," he said. "It does not work with everybody, but it helps."

Again referring to the PALS chart, Morris says at one point he was an 'atom bomb', which is the anger type in which the smallest offence sets off incredible explosions. However, he points out that this was due in some part to the sheer number of students that he had to deal with. Now, following the PALS strategy, he tries to take the child out of the situation and deal with the issue away from the critical mass of students.

Key to it all is the PALS approach of allowing expression and simply listening. "These kids need people to listen to them and the parents are not around," Morris told THE STAR. "You have to give them a sounding board." After listening, he then tries to explain to the student that the situation is not healthy for the class.

PALS trainer, Rosemarie Thomas, relates an incident at Tivoli Comprehensive which illustrates the effectiveness of the strategy of listening and engagement. A teacher was doing a PALS activity with students in which they would catch a ball thrown to them, give the appropriate response, return it to the teacher, who would then throw it to another student. One student made no attempt to catch it and, on the brink of getting angry, the teacher reconsidered and asked the student what was wrong. She had been beaten so hard by her parent that her arm was swollen and she was simply unable to catch the ball.

At Mountainside Primary in St Elizabeth, guidance counsellor Claudette Smith says PALS trainer Maxine Wright rewarded the first teacher to arrive at a training session. The lesson was "if we want the children to arrive early, we are going to have to model the behaviour".

Proper environment

Another PALS strategy towards changing school culture is making the environment friendly and appealing, very much like a home away from home. So, at Mountainside Primary there is a beautification programme in place, with the lawn being maintained and general furniture repair being carried out. Painting is now in the action plan for the next calendar year.

This aspect of the training teachers comes under 'psychological safety'. It is one of the five 'Ps' which are pillars of the PALS-MoE 'Creating and Maintaining Safe Schools' programme. The other Ps are physical safety, policies, programmes and partnerships.

Mel Cooke, Star Writer


Officially, Angela Russell is the morning shift vice-principal at Santa Cruz Primary and Junior High School in St Elizabeth. However, for the approximately 700 students who attend the school from 7 a.m. to almost noon, as well as the members of staff, she will also be the voice of calm if there is a critical incident.

Russell told The WEEKEND STAR that in the school's critical incident management process she is the media person, who uses the intercom to advise the teachers about what is happening. Critical to the process of containing and controlling the situation is keeping the students away.

So she would "tell the other teachers we had an incident and we are asking them to keep the students inside and as calm as possible".

Memorandum of Understanding.

Santa Cruz Primary and Junior High is one of 90 primary and junior high as well as 15 high schools islandwide in which the PALS programme is being implemented during the first phase of a five-year memorandum of understanding between PALS and the Ministry of Education. The teachers were trained in managing critical incidents by PALS trainer Maxine Wright.

While the school has not had any critical incidents, Russell performed her media role in a recent simulation, which she tells The WEEKEND STAR was successful. In the exercise a teacher left her classroom to retrieve something in the staff room for the lesson. On the way back to the classroom she heard a child in the classroom screaming; the parent of a classmate with whom the student had had an altercation the previous day had entered the classroom and attacked the child.

The 10-person critical incident management team executed their duties in the practice run, rendering first aid assistance and taking the 'injured' child to a health-care facility, a car with flashing lights and blaring horn playing the role of the ambulance.

Russell said the simulation was held close to dismissal time for the first shift and "we had other members of the team managing traffic". The afternoon shift also has a 10-member critical incident management team.

Immediate Action


"For me personally, it has been effective. If and when it happens for real we have the pre-plan, the follow-up and the immediate action," Russell told The weekend STAR. A whistle is used to alert the school community to an incident, as the bell is used for a fire. "The members will know once they hear the whistle that they take up position. They know what their roles are and what to do."

She says that for the training, Wright came with a manual and "we went through it". While the teachers were not surprised at the contents there were some things that were taken for granted as they do not happen at Santa Cruz Primary and Junior High.

"We are prepared. Let's say that," Russell said. "We used to do our own thing. But getting the actual plan you know where to focus now."

Janilee Abrikian and Mel Cooke, Star Writers


'Breaks', as so many primary level children call the mid-morning pause for refreshment and reinvigoration, and lunchtime, are guaranteed glee times for many students. The latter wasn't though for quite a few students of Barracks Road Primary, and was a guaranteed stress period for the guidance counsellor of the Montego Bay, St James, school.

Principal Alonzo Jones told The STAR, "The guidance counsellor used to have her own casualty area, right in front of her office, processing and filtering injured students. She used to live at the hospital."


Kept Busy

Vice-principal Berle Hylton specified, "We used to be kept busy. The bigger children used to hit on the littler ones. We used to have stone-throwing, fighting, kicking, hitting."

These days, when the lunch bell rings at Barracks Road Primary it does not signal the opening round of simultaneous schoolyard battles. While the situation is not perfect, lunch time is no longer a standard punch time. For the lower school students in the school's 1,700 population it is mostly what it should be - crunch time, as in them champing away happily at their meals, in peace.

The younger ones go to lunch first and Hylton points out that it is not only the children who are much happier. "Teachers love the idea," said Hylton. "We have adjusted the bells and are not turning back. We decided we are going to fight to reduce incidents and injuries, and there is no turning back."

The lunch time rescheduling is one of a number of measures taken at Barracks Road Primary after the school set up a Critical Incident Management Team (CIMT), a key component of its involvement in the Peace and Love in Society (PALS) Critical Management Incident Programme (CIMP). Barracks Road is one of 98 primary and all-age schools and 15 high schools under a PALS-Ministry of Education project which is addressing crisis management.

Potential Chaos

The period before the official start of the school day is also being addressed. With up to 500 students arriving well before the bell rings to call all to official order - some as early as 6:30 a.m. - it has been a period of low supervision. While this has undoubtedly been fun for the students it is naturally a situation fraught with potential chaos.

A recent incident, in which a student was injured by equipment at the school in this 'free' time, highlighted this area of weakness even as it underscored the CIMT's efficiency as it was mobilised to handle the emergency.

When the team met at Barracks Road Primary on Tuesday to continue its planning for the (CIMP), it was agreed that the 'early bird' students needed more adult supervision. In addition, the consensus was that each classroom would be equipped with a first-aid kit; all members of the CIMT would be trained in first-aid; and teachers and students would immediately check their classrooms for potential hazards.

Moving from decision to action was done quickly; by the end of the day, president of the parent-teacher association, Ricardo Wallace, had been contacted about the manpower needs and he will be enlisting parents' help for the required supervision.

The CIMT's safety assessment has also seen prefects and teachers monitoring an area of many schools where rough-housing and conflicts take place - the playing field.

Already there are signs of a change in the Barracks Road Primary School culture and Jones says "more teachers are now seeing safety as a collective responsibility". As one teacher says, "we are more alert and trying to be more proactive".

There are signs of a change in culture with Jones saying "more teachers are now seeing safety as a collective responsibility". As one teacher says, "We are more alert and trying to be more proactive", this as there is a preventative approach to safety and security.

There is much that the team still needs to address: creating another exit that would facilitate easier movement in an evacuation of the school's 1,700 students; creating codes that would signal the level of crisis and alert the whole school community that there is a crisis; developing strategies for quick mobilisation of the team; posting signs that would guide evacuation procedures; and identifying medical personnel who would be on call to the school in the absence of a nurse.

But the principal confirms one intangible, but very significant benefit he is already enjoying. With the programme and the team in place, in crunch time - as in when a crisis occurs - he has a structure in place that will give him the time and space to make informed, rational decisions.

And that could just make all the difference.

Mel Cooke, STAR Writer


Rollington Town Primary signed on to the PALS programme in 1997, current principal (and then teacher) Dr Margaret Bailey telling THE STAR, "At the time, we were very enthusiastic about the programme, as we had disciplinary problems. PALS came to our rescue in addressing the disciplinary problems."

Bailey says that, in large part, the violence at Rollington Town Primary was a spin-off of what was happening in the community. And the programme did filter out to the community, as had been hoped. Bailey says, "The children went home and sang the song and talked about Perky Parrot." She added: "We tried to get the parents involved. We held numerous workshops. We trained them in how to resolve conflict with their partners and in the community; also, the things they say in front of their children to incite violence, as well as what they say to the students to damage their self-esteem."

"In the wider community, it had the effect we wanted," Bailey said.

Rollington Town community co-ordinator, Ronnie Wilmot, has seen that effect from outside the school, as 14 persons from Rollington Town and Norman Gardens completed the Super-PALS programme, 10 evening sessions from August to November 1998. He points out that some of the participants, many of whom were heavily involved in community activities, have gone on to other levels of community involvement. So Fabian McGowan is now councillor of the Springfield division in the Kingston and St Andrew Corpo-ration, Kirk Brown is involved in the police youth club, and Alfred Palmer is into community work.

Volatile Communities

"It was a programme that was proactive, not reactive," Wilmot said. He described a situation where Rollington Town was changing, with fewer resident homeowners and more tenants, as well as the community being bordered by volatile communities whose residents often met on the social hub of Giltress Street and had disputes which escalated.

There was also the factor of an impending election, the 2002 poll which returned the People's National Party to power.

"It came at a time when the community was changing," Wilmot said, pointing out that "20 years ago, we would not have needed PALS."

Wilmot uses a wonderful ana-logy in assessing the SuperPALS effect on Rollington Town, many of the participants involved in sports and on the spot when disputes were just brewing. "It is like somebody is keeping themselves healthy. They are taking vitamins and minerals. The fact that they did not get sick, you can't say it is because of the vitamins and minerals," he said.

"Just as the programme had a marked effect on the teachers and students (of Rollington Town Primary), it had a marked effect on the participants who took it back to the community."

Resolve Disputes

Fabian McGowan says that the PALS approach of thinking before acting, which changed his personal approach as well, has stayed with him.

"Ignorance is always a killer. If you are brought up not knowing how to resolve disputes, you do what you know. You either fight it out - or whatever happens," he said. "It actually gave us another view, out-of-the-box thinking. You seek dialogue."

The change was very personal as well, McGowan saying that he was more "of the hothead type, to put it in layman's terms".

In his current capacity as councillor, McGowan has got word of disputes and intervened, the lessons he learnt over a decade ago coming into play.

"Once you have gone through it (the PALS training), it is hard to lose it. It is not a matter of going back. It has always been there with me and those are the skills that come out naturally," McGowan said.

After an extended break, during which the administration still kept the programme and its principles going, PALS is officially back at Rollington Town Primary, one of 90 primary and junior high institutions as well as 15 high schools, islandwide in which the programme is being implemented during the first phase of a five-year memorandum of understanding between PALS and the Ministry of Education.

Bailey says this time around, it is not any less effective. And she intends to keep it in place permanently. "I am currently doing a conflict resolution action plan, so it can be sustained," she said.

Mel Cooke, Star Writer


Damoy Eastman first saw the Penwood High School handbook last year as a fourth former when the comprehensive guide to conduct, based on a template provided by Peace and Love in Society (PALS), was introduced at the St Andrew school. Then, he was struck by what he was just learning about his school.

That included how it got its name, how old it is and the names of some of the outstanding graduates.

Disciplinary Matter

A year later, the Students' Council president is struck by just how much many of Penwood's students do not know about what is in the handbook, which is required reading and is utilised in many a disciplinary matter.

Still, he says, it has made a difference and Eastman says as a peer counsellor, he utilises the handbook in his one-on-one sessions with his colleagues. And the teaching student, who at times finds himself facing a classroom of students, tells The WEEKeND STAR that he speaks about the handbook when delivering social studies and guidance lessons.

"They abide by some of the rules, but not others," he said.

Penwood is one of several high schools, Donald Quarrie High on the other side of the city also among them, to have utilised the PALS handbook templates to develop their own document. PALS General Manager, Janilee Abrikian, told The WEEKeND STAR that "PALS decided to develop a handbook upon recognising that many schools did not have one, or what they had was inadequate, such as a two-pager. Where those two-pagers did exist, they were also very old and parents and students did not have a copy".

Penwood's principal, Austin Burrell, told The WEEKeND STAR that parents and students are required to read the institution's 42-page handbook thoroughly and sign a declaration that they have done so. The declaration reads in part: "I declare my unreserved willingness to abide by the rules and regulations governing Penwood High School as they are outlined in the handbook."

Donald Quarrie's principal, Reford Hines, confirms that while the school rules were written down previously, using the PALS template provided the school with a comprehensive code of conduct. Hines adds that the template was further localised with pictures, the school's vision and mission statements, the school creed, and information regarding the school's valedictory service and awards ceremony being included. And at Donald Quarrie High School, the rules are laid out not only for students, but teachers as well.

Eastman does not swallow the reasons students give for not reading the Penwood handbook, among them that it is too big to carry around ("It is the right size for a book," he says). Among the rules which Eastman sees as being especially relevant to Penwood are those on smoking and carrying weapons to school. He said just on Wednesday the handbook was referred to in an incident involving a female student.

And there are items in the Penwood handbook that he would like to see much more attention paid to, chief among them the security policy.


Policies

Although it is clearly stated that the handbook cannot cover every single incident which may arise over an academic year, the templates are detailed and comprehensive. The format includes an introductory section, followed by general information. The policies, regulations and procedures section addresses issues such as cellphone use, sexual conduct, vandalism, health safety and security, visitors and substance abuse. Stakeholder roles - parents, staff, the dean of discipline, the principal - are defined.

The student conduct code and discipline plan include disciplinary action levels and disciplinary options. Outlined is a range of preventive strategies in which the student can be engaged. Where these are not effective, and the student needs additional help with self-management, other measures, such as contracts, special assignments and teacher-parent conferences are suggested. Measures for dealing with more serious and recurring inappropriate student behaviours are also included.

Damoy Eastman, who had a copy of the Penwood High handbook close to hand when he spoke to The WEEKeND STAR yesterday, is happy with its content.

"I think the handbook is quite fine as it is. It has all the relevant details," Eastman said.