…Where is the school bus that was promised? asks Sterling Castle mother
NOVELETT MORGAN, a parent in the community of Sterling Castle Heights, St Andrew, believes that the purchase of a school bus would help to ease some of the anxiety currently being experienced by parents who live in fear for their children, following the murder of eight-year-old Shante Skyers in April.
“A lot of children from here go to Red Hills School and we were asking if they can just get a bus because my daughter used to walk there to school, too, where the little girl was murdered, but not on the same side, and eventually I had to stop her,” said the mother, whose two children attend the school.
Morgan, who has four children, added, “When I am going to work, I bring them and put them on a bus and the bus brings them to school and we pay $50 [for each], but when they are coming back from school, because I have to work, it is $600 right about now for them. I have to pay $3,000 now for the two of them [per week], just to reach home.” Morgan earns $10,000 per week. After paying $3,000 for the children to come home from school, $500 for them to go to school and an additional $2,000 weekly for their lunch, she is left with only $4,500 to maintain her household. “When the incident happened, they said they were going to give a bus to bring them to school and we would pay a little fee, but from the incident, we don’t hear anything,” she said.