Seven months after Hurricane Melissa tore through sections of the island, some schools in the hardest-hit communities are reporting a troubling fallout: students, mainly boys, abandoning classrooms for construction sites, farms, supermarkets – and, in some cases, the underground economy.

Administrators say worsening economic hardship has forced many students, particularly those nearing adulthood, to become breadwinners for struggling families still trying to recover from the disaster.

“The roofs are still off some homes, food has to be bought, and many times these boys are the ‘man at the yard’,” Newell High School Vice-Principal Errol Bennett told The Sunday Gleaner.