SCHOOL CHALLENGE QUIZ DISPUTE

This year’s Schools’ Challenge Quiz has been plunged into controversy as two teams — Kingston College and Camperdown High — have lodged complaints about the outcome of matches that resulted in their ouster from the competition.
Yesterday, Camperdown coach David Fuller confirmed to the Jamaica Observer that they were seeking legal advice and suggested that the matter could end up in court.
That information was corroborated by William McLeod, chairman of the school board.
“Yes, that’s one of the options,” he responded when the Sunday Observer asked for a confirmation.

“We’re going to have a board meeting on Tuesday, but I’m positive that things are going to be moving before then,” McLeod added.
Camperdown’s complaint follows a decision by the competition’s producer Michael Gonzales, and presenter
Television Jamaica (TVJ), to have the school replay Ardenne High. That match, which was played last Monday and aired Wednesday, ended in Camperdown winning 34-32.
But the decision to stage a rematch was based on what TVJ has admitted was a scoring error during the ‘buzzer section’ — the round in which the teams indicate, via a buzzer, their intention to answer questions.
The team that first presses the buzzer is acknowledged and allowed to answer. Two points are awarded for each correct answer, while two points are deducted for incorrect answers or if the team responds before being identified.
“In the buzzer section, Ardenne got a question right and TVJ made an error by not scoring it,” Camperdown’s Fuller explained yesterday.
“The match ended 34-32, but they’re saying it should have ended 34-34, that’s an error on their part. After leaving the studio, that cannot be corrected,” he argued.
That, according to Fuller, is the rule governing challenges to the result.
“The rule is that after leaving the studio the match is officially over. If a team wants to query something it must be done immediately after the final section,” Fuller told the Sunday Observer.
However, he said the school received a call on Thursday about a rematch. He said that on Friday, during a meeting on the matter between Camperdown, Ardenne and TVJ representatives, they were told that the rematch was scheduled for Monday (tomorrow) and if Camperdown did not show, the points would be awarded to Ardenne.
“Both coaches are given a scoring card. It was an error on the part of TVJ and Ardenne’s coach not to query,” Fuller insisted.
However, Ardenne Principal Nadine Molloy told the Sunday Observer yesterday that, while her school did not lodge a query, her coach had told her that after the match he went to the judges and asked about the score because he felt it was wrong, based on his tally, but was told that everything was fine.
“Because of that, it never became something that was pursued,” Molloy said.
However, she said that people who were paying attention realised that Ardenne could not, after starting the buzzer section with 20 points, answer seven questions correctly and end with 32 points.
“So, the match essentially was a drawn match,” Molloy said.
She said she started receiving calls after the match was aired Wednesday night from viewers who kept score and who noticed the error.
Molloy explained that she asked one of her coaches to contact TVJ, but when she continued receiving calls about the error, she decided to call TVJ General Manager Claire Grant on Thursday morning.
She said that at the time she called, Grant was not aware of the error. “To her credit, she went and checked, and when she realised there was an error I must commend TVJ for moving very quickly to seek a resolution with us,” Molloy said.
She said she attended the meeting on Friday with her two coaches, the Camperdown principal, and four representatives from
TVJ.
“At that meeting, the position was put forward that the easiest thing to do was to have the match replayed,” Molloy said. “I didn’t have any objections. It was unfortunate that there was a scoring error.”
But that decision has not gone down well at Camperdown.
According to Fuller, the members of the Camperdown team “were emotionally drained” on Friday.
“Some of them were crying. The time between the match and when we are now hearing that we have a rematch just affected them, because we were looking forward to playing Manchester [High] on Monday,” he said.
McLeod admitted not being au fait with all the facts. However, he said that the report he received on the matter Friday has not left him pleased.
“The whole upper school is distraught,” McLeod told the Sunday Observer. “One of the things that we’ve got to be sensitive about when you have children and you’re trying to raise them, [is to instil in them] what is right, decent, and fair play.”
“We must find some sense of balance when handling kids. These are kids in lower and upper sixth [form]; they’re coming out in the world in another year or so, and you don’t want them to have scars,” he said.
“You try to protect them as much as possible, teach them what is right and what is wrong, what are their rights, and from what I’m hearing of this matter it seems as if there is a power play because of who we are at Camperdown, as against the other school, and I just don’t like that at all,” McLeod said.
“I’m very, very distraught about it, but we’re going to stand up; and if it means that we have to take on
TVJ and whoever it is, we will do it, that’s what democracy is all about. If we are wrong, I will concede, but from what I’m hearing, we’re not wrong,” McLeod added.
The Camperdown/Ardenne matter follows the official complaint lodged by Kingston College (KC) on March 15 after that school’s quarter-final match against Campion College which was also played and recorded last Monday.
In a letter to the producer, KC Principal Dave Myrie argued that at the end of the match his team had “a clear lead — at least 43 points to Campion College’s 39”.
He said the 43 points included those earned for the correct answer given to a Spanish question, but which was “initially and surprisingly ruled incorrect by the judges”.
But even after that, he said, KC should have been declared the winner.
However, Myrie said that after the judges reversed themselves on the Spanish question, they deducted points from KC regarding another answer given during section three and which was initially scored as correct.
“This new matter related to the answer ‘Absalom’ to a Bible Knowledge question,” Myrie said. “The judges’ subsequent decision or declaration that KC’s answer to this question was incorrect (based on the pronunciation of the name!!) was particularly disturbing as KC was unaware that there was a challenge to, or issue with this answer when the judges retired to review section three at the end of the match.”
He said that in the spirit of fairness, justice, transparency, and in order to prevent bringing the competition into disrepute, he was asking that:
• the judges reconsider their decision and allow the scores at the end of the match to stand;
• alternatively, KC, through its duly appointed representatives, including an attorney-at-law, be allowed a fair hearing or audience regarding a review of the match, especially the decision relating to ‘Absalom’.
• Campion College, through its duly appointed representatives, including an attorney-at-law, also be invited to be present at the review; and
• the hearing involve the relevant parties reviewing the recording of at least section three of the match and, after that review, allow KC to present arguments in support of its position.
Myrie said that if the requests were not acceptable to TVJ, he was asking for a rematch to resolve the controversy.
TVJ’s Grant, in response, told Myrie that his letter was referred to the judges, but pointed out that, in accordance with Rule 8 of the competition, “there does not have to be a challenge to a question for the sitting judges to make a ruling”.
“In light of the judges’ report, TVJ is sufficiently assured that due process was followed by the said judges and that the outcome of the captioned match was fair and just,” Grant said.
She said that if Myrie still wished to have further discussion on the matter, the station was open to having a meeting with him and anyone he deemed appropriate.
On Wednesday, when the Sunday Observer sought a comment from Gonzales, as to whether or not KC’s request would be honoured, he replied: “The match ended in a tie and went to sudden death and Campion won in sudden death. The match will be aired on Friday.”