THE PRINCIPAL OF MONA HIGH SCHOOL IN KINGSTON, KEVEN JONES, SENDS HOME 260 UNRULY STUDENTS FOR “DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR!”

More than 260 grade-eight students at the Mona High School were sent home for what the principal Keven Jones describes as disruptive behavior.

“We have got so many reports from teachers. They (students) are unsettled, some of them do no homework, (and) they are stepping in and out of teachers’ classes,” he told THE WEEKEND STAR.

“They continue to litter the school premises and even at general assembly and other gatherings they show scant regard for authority. We have found out that the students are vandalizing the school property,” he continued.

He said that the matter has escalated to a level where he felt parents needed to be called in after the students displayed boisterous behavior during general assembly on Wednesday.

“They were given the letter close to 1 p.m. [on Wednesday] … they report to school tomorrow (today),” he said. The students were out of school yesterday.

He said that a special meeting is scheduled to take place today at 9 a.m. with the parents.

“What will be communicated with all these parents is that as a principal, I cannot preside over a school with unruly children, and so I want to make it abundantly clear to them that they have to play their part as parents,” he told THE WEEKEND STAR.

WORK IN PARTNERSHIP

He said that the parents have to work in partnership with the school to ensure that their children come to school on time, attend classes, work hard, and obey the rules.

“We will not allow the students to come to an institution like Mona High School, where we have made so many gains. We can’t allow them to erode the gains that we have made so far,” he said.

And if the students continue to be disruptive after the meeting, Jones said that disruptive students will be removed from the institution.

“There comes a time when you have to part ways with unruly kids and we push it back on to the parents and say to them: ‘You have to find another place of this child’,” he said. “Because when children come to school, they need to behave themselves. It is an institution of learning and nobody is going to put up with their foolishness.”