Friday, May 8, 2009

                                 Corneld Lindo, President of the

                                 Excelsior Alumni Association of Florida

News of the appointment of a new principal for Excelsior has ignited a fire storm of controversy amid questions about the transparency of the process.

 A report on a current affairs program on Nationwide Radio, aired Monday May 4, 2009, and heard by alumni worldwide via the internet, charged that objective Ministry of Education protocol was abandoned in order to name a preferred candidate who had actually finished fifth in a field of six in the initial selection process.

 The report has spawned a flurry of emails and telephone calls from alumni, both overseas and in Jamaica, who have expressed outrage and concern about the allegations. They have asked the school’s Board of Management for an explanation.  

"How do you give the top prize to the person who finished fifth”, one London based alumna wondered, “Simply because for some subjective reason you decide that he embodies what you are looking for in a principal, and not the four who performed better on the day?”

 “It is like disregarding the fact that Usain Bolt had actually won the 100m at the Olympics in 9.69 seconds and giving the gold medal to the fifth place finisher anyway because you refuse to accept the “arithmetic” of Bolt’s performance” 

It was a recurring theme in many of the emails.

 “Why bother running the race if you are going to use subjective means to award the gold to the person who finished down the track because you preferred his smile or some other arbitrary criterion” another asked in her email.

In the wake of the burgeoning controversy, which has shown no sign of ending, the Florida and New York chapters of the Alumni Association have issued a joint statement expressing their concern. They followed up with a formal letter to the Board asking for a meeting to address the issue. So far there has been no response.

 “I am really appalled at the attitude of the Board” said Corneld Lindo, President of the Excelsior Alumni Association of Florida.  “Even more, as the  parent of a child at Excelsior, it deeply angers me because they seem to think we should have no say in what happens at the school” 

He reiterated that the concern was not about which person was ultimately chosen but with the fairness and objectivity of the process. Neither, he noted, was this about pitting one particular candidate against another.

As the controversy raged, he said the alumni chapters in the Diaspora are weighing their options in order to express their displeasure with the situation.