Hail, Jeanette Grant-woodham
Dear Editor,
The death, on September 7, of Jeanette Grant-woodham, former principal of Tivoli Gardens High School, president of the Senate, deputy foreign minister and women’s advocate marks the end of an era.
To many of her former students, especially those of us from the 1970s, she was “Miss Grant”. One of the remarkable things about her was that she knew all our names. She loved and cared for her students and didn’t just want us to learn, she wanted us to achieve. She was
Dear Editor,
I, for one, was willing to give US President Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt when he was elected in 2016. But since then he has been somewhat of a disappointment. He has caused a lot of chaos and ineffectiveness in the White House. The turnover rate is just phenomenal and unheard of. All his close associates have at one time or the other been convicted and incarcerated. And those convicted who didn’t go to prison were pardoned by him. In other words, the law and order president was pardoning law breakers.
Trump single-handedly wrecked the career of former teacher, surrogate mother, counsellor, protector, friend and often our biggest cheerleader.
I can recall in the 1970s when the community of Tivoli was under curfew and my schoolmates could not attend school, Miss Grant would drive her red Datsun motor car over to the “Centre” to plead with the ground commander to allow her students to cross the road to attend school.
She can be described as the undisputed architect of the modern Tivoli Gardens High School. Our school has become a truly multi-disciplinary educational institution offering courses in the arts, sciences, skills training, sports, and culture.
Grant-woodham was proud of her students, many of whom are making their contribution to national development in the fields of education (a significant number of the teachers at Tivoli Gardens High School are past students), accounting, nursing, civil service, police and military, culture, sports, among other areas.
In 2014 past students established the Jeanette
Grant-woodham Education Foundation in her honour. The foundation offers bursaries and scholarships to Tivoli Gardens High School alumnae attending tertiary institutions.
In her lifetime, GrantWoodham achieved many firsts and has done very well in her respective endeavours. We shall cherish her memory.
Our condolence to her son Omar and other members of her family.