School principals in the violence-prone community of Spanish Town, St Catherine say the recent lull in gang warfare that once plagued the old capital has positively impacted the academic performance of some students.

Audrey Edwards, principal of the Spanish Town High School located at the corner of Young and Ellis Streets, said students had settled down since the decline in violent outbreaks.

Spanish Town had been the scene of a spate of killings in recent years as rival factions within the dilapidated town fought to gain control of a thriving extortion racket.

"It was fear, more than the actual contact, that affected us," said Edwards. "I can't say that we have had to close school one day because of violence, but it did have an effect on the psychology of not just our students, but teachers and other school staff," she added.

Edwards, who has been a teacher at the school for more than 25 years, said there has been an improvement in some students' performance in the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

Highly secure facility

"We have students now getting ten subjects at the CSEC level," she told The Gleaner.

"We are not really getting brighter children, but the fear that they were affected by is somewhat waning and they can settle down a little better now."

She added: "The percentile level of examination, especially at CSEC continues to increase yearly, so that is also a plus for the school."

A visit to the institution, which stands almost in the centre of the town, conjures images of a highly secure facility, with its razor-wired walls and overpowering grille gates.

Edwards explained that the razor wires were put in place to deter intruders.

Principal of the Jonathan Grant High School, Cortez Nolan, also reported that in recent years, there had been some improvement in the academic performance of students.

"Jonathan Grant High School has been improving over time and there is nothing that we can blame on the violence in the town, because when they come inside here the teachers provide a haven for them and they are allowed to perform," Nolan said.

She added: "But we have had improvements in the (CSEC) results since we have had less of the upheavals."

Nolan said in the past, violent eruptions in the old capital had a very traumatic effect on many students and teachers.

"We had children who would come crying to school because somebody died for them, either some brother, some uncle; there was even a case where a child's grandmother was killed."

School communities

The school principal said there were instances in which school would be dismissed and students would stay, as they dreaded going back into their communities.

"I don't want that to come back," she said. "We don't want things to get back to that state."

Both Edwards and Nolan, however, admitted that they have had to grapple with their own form of violence inside the school communities.

"About two years ago, we had a mini 'Order' and a mini 'Clans' (gangs) and because they knew that there was infighting between the two, those who came from that community were up in arms against those who came from the other community," she said. The One Order and the Clansman gangs are established criminal networks in Spanish Town.

Nolan said the school had to make a special effort to monitor the activities of the students involved in the gangs to quell conflicts as they arose.

According to Edwards, the school has put seve-ral programmes in place to help fight the plague of school violence. The initiatives include the Safe Schools Programme.

"We have to give much credit to the school resource officers because they have done a wonderful job in assisting us to control the level of violence," she said.

School resource officers are police personnel who have been assigned to schools to address violence and disruptive behaviour.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com