Not many people can claim to be back, teaching, or better yet leading at their alma mater, forty plus years later. But Paulette Meredith can claim that. She is principal of the Runaway Basic School in the town of the same name.
Ms Meredith attended the school as a child and life has taken her back there where she has served for decades and has been the proud head for the last three years.
She is enjoying it, while still teaching a class of four year olds and leading a team of five teachers, a cook and a janitor. The school was once larger but now has a population of about 200. Still fee paying, it has to contend with fierce competition from other early childhood institutions and even the government’s Runaway Bay All Age that recently added an infant department.
But many parents place their faith in the school, sending children from as far as Brown’s Town, Discovery Bay and Priory in a radius of eight to 12 miles. Also, many come from much nearer including Mt Pleasant, Bell Air, Cardiff Hall, Mt Edgecombe and Cox Heath.
The curriculum followed is the standard one by the Early Childhood Commission. The school administration and Board want to create a proper play area necessary for the enhanced physical development of children of this age. However the school, on the grounds of the Runaway Bay Tabernacle Church yard, next to the town’s police station is in cramped quarters but is coming up with a solution.
In the meantime the school tries its best with extra curricula activities and boasts of its 4-H club of which class 5 students are members.
Breakfast is provided free of cost for all students and lunch provided at a cost of $150. Meals are prepared by Shaneka Bolt. Candy Campbell is given the task of keeping the place clean for the young ones.
Class teachers are: – for three-year-olds, June Brown and Kalelah Hodges; four-year-olds Judith Allen and Paulette Meredith and five-year-olds Petana Wright.
Ms Wright is one of the new faces at the school but the Moneague College graduate is loving it, after getting a foothold in the education system after college through the JEEP.
All the team members are enthusiastic. For Ms Hodges, the youngest of them, it’s a chance to give back.
The school has been in operation for decades though the exact start date is not known. Ms Meredith says Dorothy Samuels started the school in Claremont. It moved to Shelton and then to the grounds of the United Church, Runaway Bay and at the time she attended as a student the classes were held in the church building. Later a new building was constructed for the church and the school now has comfortable two- storey structure. Ms Meredith acted during Ms Samuel’s illness and then for three years after, before being appointed principal to lead the school.
