With
the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Gabrielle Rowe still fresh in the minds of Jamaicans, principal of St Andrew Preparatory School Dr Carol Blanchard says that institution will be introducing stakeholder identification cards to complement its suite of safety measures.
Rowe, a student of Braeton Primary School, was taken from her St Catherine-based school on June 8 by a then unidentified woman and transported to Roosevelt Avenue, St Andrew, where her throat was slashed and she was thrown from a vehicle. She was found and taken to the Bustamante Hospital for Children, where she died a day later. The woman is now in police custody and was pointed out during an identification parade as the individual who took the child from the school’s premises.
“We will be doing a stakeholders ID and we will communicate that to you at a later date so you can come in to do your photographs,” Blanchard told a cohort of parents attending a recent orientation at St Andrew Preparatory in the Corporate Area. She, however, did not divulge details of the security features the card will carry.
Blanchard said such measures have become increasingly necessary given the present climate in the country in which children are no longer viewed as a protected species by individuals bent on doing evil.
Dr Blanchard said the card will be used alongside security camera coverage and an existing contact sheet which all guardians are required to complete and return to the school, which states explicitly the name and contact of two individuals who are authorised to collect a child in the event the main parent cannot do so. The school must, however, be notified about the change in arrangement.
Addressing the issue of the use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, Dr Blanchard said while the school embraced the use of cameras as a surveillance measure, it was not to be seen as the endgame.
“We do have cameras on plant and at a later date, as part of our discussion, given what is happening in the entire island with respect to safety, we want to be able to keep a close tab, but I want to say to every parent that some things are a false sense of security, including cameras, because very often what your camera does is capture what has been done, so the best thing to do is to be very proactive in our actions,” she noted.
“The reason you are given a detailed contact sheet is to ensure that just in case you are unable to pick up your child someone from your village, your network is identified and not just identified on paper but also get the opportunity to come to school to know the teachers and persons on the ground.
“I am not saying cameras are not important. What is important to me as a principal is to ensure that the other things we are putting in place are taken seriously. Because I do believe that when it is that you know the persons who are coming to pick up the children, when you have that relationship with the parent and you cover that with persons who automate on the compound, that is a big part of security,” Dr Blanchard stated.
“Our cameras can cover those persons who are coming in and can help with investigations but I also want us to focus a lot on the things that we can prevent and so ensuring that you have the persons who are coming in on our data form actually meet with our faculty is also a very important part in security arrangements for the school,” she added.
In June this year, following the murder of Rowe, Education Minister Fayval Williams said CCTV cameras are to be installed at the entrances of all primary schools. She said this was part of the ministry’s efforts to strengthen safety and security measures at these institutions.
“We’ve generally reserved CCTVs, or safety cameras, for high schools, especially those in vulnerable areas. But having seen what has happened here at this very quiet primary and infant school, we have to begin to increase the safety and security… so, at the very least, when there is a situation, we can at least get some footage,” Williams maintained.
Commanding officer for the St Catherine South Police Division Senior Superintendent of Police Christopher Phillips recommended that the School Safety and Security Policy, as it relates to all institutions, be updated so that it “speaks to the modern reality and that which creates standard procedures on school safety and security”.
In late August, president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Leighton Johnson called for, among other things, CCTV cameras in all schools, one police officer assigned to each institution, and secured compounds to protect students.
Minister Williams subsequently said CCTV cameras will be installed at 15 more schools for the new school year. She said it would cost $1.5 billion to install surveillance cameras in all primary schools islandwide.
