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It has been 10 months since 42-year-old teacher Michael Hope of St Aloysius Primary School in Kingston went missing.

Hope went missing on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, and his car was later found along the Palisadoes main road. Neither his family nor his colleagues have heard from him.

"Every day we ask why. There is no body so we don't even have closure. Each time we hear on the news that a body is found, we hope we can get some closure. For some reason he's not here and we didn't even get to send him off nicely," Merlene Campbell, vice-principal for grades one to three at the school told THE STAR.

Campbell says Hope had a commendable rapport with students - even those who have moved on to higher education.

"When students got their GSAT results, they would run to him and thank him. Even after students did GSAT and go off to high school, they would come back and visit him," she said.

Campbell said that Hope "can never leave our mind".

Very instrumental

"We can't forget him because as a grade one teacher and coordinator, he would be very instrumental in the grade one students coming in. We would also do preparations from April and he would be working with me," she said. "We went in for about two or three days for the week in June, and his name was always called ... it cannot stop call."

Meanwhile, Panceta Walker, who supervised Hope during his teaching practice, says his absence has left a void.

"He came as a student teacher from St Joseph's Infant School. He was actually recommended by me to the principal that she could put him on staff," she said.

Since being employed full time at St Aloysius Primary, Hope has been there for a decade. Over that period, Walker says they developed a close relationship.

"We have so many things in common. We celebrate the same birth month so we are always having everything done in February. It was basically a very close relationship," she said.

She says the upcoming school term would be challenging without him.

"To think that September is coming around again ... to the time of his disappearance, it's something we really don't want to see, but it is what it is. It's very rough. The students he had in grade two are the last ones that had him for the entire year," she said. "The grade one students who met him in September are the ones he had for less than a month. They met him in September and then by the 24th, he was nowhere to be found."

The school family has been giving out flyers pleading with anyone knowing Hope's whereabouts to contact the Kingston Central police at 876-922-0308, or the school at 876-922-2558.