Principals of the territory’s three high schools described the schools' dire state to a Senate Education Committee on Thursday and warned that accreditation is in jeopardy if meaningful steps aren't taken immediately.
The schools, which have been fraught with the same problems for years, have conditional accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools only until Dec. 31, 1999.
Without accreditation, V.I. students will not meet qualifications for some scholarships and may not be admitted to accredited colleges and universities.
A team from the Middle States Association is due back in the territory in March to review four areas of concern: site-based control of budgets, student attendance, teacher attendance and availability of substitute teachers.
The only area that has seen improvement, according to media reports about Thursday's hearing, was student attendance.
The three principals — Kent Moorhead of Central High, Jeanette Smith of Charlotte Amalie and Sinclair Wilkinson of Ivanna Eudora Kean — described terrible conditions in their schools: an average of 21 teachers absent per day coupled with a tiny pool of substitute teachers, lack of textbooks and severely inadequate facilities, to name only a few.
A letter from Middle States Chairman William J. Biniek said these conditions were not new but are no longer acceptable.
The letter, sent last May to the principals and copied to Gov. Roy L. Schneider and Education Commissioner Liston Davis, said that the commission team sent to the schools last year “was firm in its view that little or no progress was made to correct these conditions following the last notice.”
Money appears to be a major hurdle in solving the schools’ problems, according to the educators who testified Thursday.
Acting Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds said one money issue is retroactive wages. Simmonds said teachers might be more willing to come to work if they were properly compensated, according to the Independent. As part of their union contracts, public school teachers are allowed 13 sick days and five personal days per school year.
Wilkinson said school officials “have become miracle workers . . . and we’ve run out of Houdini tricks,” according to the Daily News report. He also said it takes an average of two and one-half to three years for a textbook to arrive after it's ordered.
Smith said substitute teachers are vital "and at CAHS they do not exist."
The Daily News gave the following rundown of specific problems at both St. Thomas high schools:
— CAHS: no substitute teachers; lacking two science teachers, a health teacher, two special education teachers and, in a few days, a math teacher, an assistant principal, a librarian, two custodians, an attendance counselor, an assistant registrar, paraprofessionals and other support staff.
— Kean: no substitute teachers; no textbooks for Caribbean and V.I. history (mandated courses); in many classrooms one set of book for four classes; only four working computers in the computer lab; inadequate equipment such as copying machines; no auditorium; not enough chairs and tables in the cafeteria; inadequate ramps for special education students; inadequate maintenance and security.
