Bishop Gibson and Douglas Forrest must be turning in their graves right now over recent reports of school violence at KC's North Street campus. It was reported in various media that in one incident several students attacked a teacher and in another several students attacked another student with knives.
Are we witnessing the steady destruction of the legacy of our two great fathers?
The bad news of the incidents spread quickly throughout the Old Boy community. Many expressed shock. One remarked, "what a bangarang!" Others called for immediate expulsion for such intolerable behavior. Garfield Parker, a director of KCOBA Atlanta said, "It is unfortunate these circumstances occurred at our beloved Alma Mater, however this is not an isolated incident and rather a Jamaica problem more than a K.C. problem."
Errol Lecky, former Treasurer of the New York Chapter commented, " We always had some " rough necks" entering the school (during my time) but they mostly left as gentlemen. The culture of the school was such to transform them. Moreover, as Seniors, we always knew it was our duty to GUIDE the young ones. I suspect much of that culture is lost. What with religious education pushed to the background and the inability of the school to find a suitable principal, since the mid 1990s. It is no wonder that the Ministry of Education has had to step in and try to right the situation."
KCOB Twan Beckford sounded a dire warning in his timely and candid article published in the Newsletter of December 2008 in which he lamented that "we are living on past glory." He went on to provide details of several other incidents that had occured at the school that were cause for alarm. Read Twan's article entitled, "Can We or Will We?" and weep here.
You can read accounts of the incidents reported in the Gleaner here.
