Get it sorted
CEDRIC Murray, principal of Ascot High School, has been mandated by the school’s board to convene a meeting with Dianna Lennon, mother of student athlete Vashon McCarthy, to immediately resolve a problem that has taken on national interest.
The board delivered the instruction following a meeting last Friday.
“I have been instructed by the board to correspond with the mother and that is what came out of it,” Murray, 10-year principal of the 16-year-old institution based in Portmore, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
When quizzed if the board meeting was a positive one, he would only say that every meeting is a positive one.
“It can be observed that way. I will make contact with her on Monday.”
McCarthy, the defending Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) Class Two shot put, and Carifta Games Under-17 discus champion’s participation at this year’s Boys’ and Girls’ Championships was in jeopardy after differences with the school, which prompted Murray to issue a threat to not enter him for Champs.
According to Murray, McCarthy, who coincidentally won the Under-20 shot put with 15.84 metres at yesterday’s Queen’s Grace Jackson track and field meet at the National Stadium, abandoned Ascot’s sports programme, having decided to train at Excelsior High School with well-known throwing coach Michael Vassell.
But Lennon cried foul, arguing that her son was only getting ‘extra lessons’ from an outside coach in order to enhance his development.
But since the Observer broke the story last week, principal Murray indicated that he took the stance not to send McCarthy to Champs because he was not in the school’s programme. He later indicated, however, that the door was still open for the student athlete to be entered for Champs.
“If the school have a programme you have to be a part of it and you can go and get any technical assistance anywhere in the world, and I don’t have a problem with that. But you must take some form of instruction from the school,” Murray had said.
“There is always hope. The door was never, ever totally closed. There are a lot of wounds and the greater wound is Vashon’s wound and that is the wound that I am really concerned about.”