Dear Editor,
I read Governor Ajamu Baly’s speech in connection with the opening of the new Parliament years and took me back to the 2006/2007 school year when I worked as the security coordinator and discipline coach. At that time already I realized that the youth of Sint Maarten were longing for specific guidance. Before that school year, the police was called to that school daily for all kinds of misbehaviour. During the year that I was there the police was called to the P.S.V.E. four times. He demanded certain rules be set in place and demanded that every Monday morning all the classes would assemble at the recess area and sing the Sint Maarten song together. No cell phones.
The teachers should be capable to respond to whatever was asked. One morning after working there for about three months, one of the male teachers greeted me with a high-five. He said to me “You’re making my job easier since you are here” Two things that I felt and still feel good about is that several times during that year especially boys would come to me and express that they did not have a father at home to speak to them in the manner in which I spoke to them. The other good thing was, even though I did not see it black on white, I was told that the passing percentage went from 57% the year before to 87% the year I was there.
In the meantime the person who contracted me had passed and the new president told me that the budget did not suffice to keep me. One of the teachers later told me that the new president told them in a meeting that I came in there like a one-man-gang, put discipline in the place, making the teachers look small. Although it is not the same topic, Governor Baly did not do any sugar coating. I too believe that it is time to embrace, commit and act.
Congratulations Sint Maarten!
Russell A. Simmons
