Kemps did it - Educators enforce strict rules for on-budget, on-time construction

Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner WriterLocated in the sugar-cane belt in Clarendon, Kemps Hill High School sits on nine and a half acres of land in one of the poorest areas in the island. However, the clean environment of the school and the interior and exterior beauty would cause several prominent high schools across the island to be envious.
Principal Rohan Copeland and his vice-principal, Vernon Morrison, said the school and the children were the country's investment, with the teachers and administrators mere custodians of the nation's trust.
Two years ago, the school completed the construction of the L.C. Wright building, which is named in honour of a former principal.
The majority of funding for the new building came from the education ministry, but Copeland says the school contributed nearly $10 million towards the building of the three-storey block.
The school's contribution came from fundraising activities as well as its tuck shop savings.
"I don't know how the contractor was chosen because I was not the principal then. But I can tell you that we - myself and the vice-principal - were vigilant like hawks, especially because we were investing our hard-earned savings, and we were also cognisant that we were in charge of taxpayers' money," Copeland said,
"If the contractor was given 40 bags of cement today and at the end of the day he said he used 23, we asked for the used bags and counted the 23 used bags. We made sure that the 17 unused bags were locked away for usage the next day. We did not let up; we were vigilant to the day it was finished," said Morrison, as the two spoke with The Sunday Gleaner last week.
Everything accounted for
Copeland said the school can account "for every inch of steel that was used anywhere on the building".
According to the principal, personnel from the Ministry of Education gave technical assistance from the start to the finish of the project.
When the project was fully completed in January 2011, there were three completed blocks, comprising 11 classrooms, a male and female bathroom, a storeroom and two offices.
The first two floors were completed in 2009, and the third floor just over a year later.
"The block now houses about 500 fourth- and fifth-form students. When it was completed, it was handed over with light, water, completed bathrooms and it was painted. The keys were given to us and once we furnished it, it was ready for use," said Copeland.
"The money for the total project was not handed over at once, but in tranches, and only after officials of the ministry came in, did their inspection and signed off the work. Essentially, the payments were incremental."
Copeland and Morrison started at Kemps Hill in 1993, fresh out of teachers' college, and have seen the school's population double and its physical size increase.
"The school population has increased and so has the teaching population. However, the support staff has remained the same, so there is a lot of pressure, but we manage. The school is an investment to the community," said Copeland.
He praised the community for the pride it takes in the school, and also for contributing funds to construct the perimeter fence around the school.
"We have a 10-foot-high block and steel fence around the nine and a half acres around the school. We have furniture here that we have contributed to other schools in the area. It's our school, and the community is as vigilant as we are about the school's property," said Morrison.
Copeland said many, including ministry officials, expressed surprise that the project finished on time and on budget.
"It takes management and dedication," he said simply.
Meanwhile, over at Denbigh High School, principal Kasan Martin-Troupe said she could not give permission to the team to take pictures of the completed block without permission from the board.