Feb. 17, 2009 — While the Education Department called a forum to discuss upcoming standardized tests, St. John parents and one student gave Education Commissioner La Verne Terry and other department officials an earful on other topics.
About 100 people attended the meeting Tuesday at the Julius E. Sprauve School cafeteria.
For starters, young St. John men who attend Eudora Kean High School on St. Thomas are continually harassed by a group of young men from Smith Bay, St. Thomas, several parents and a student said.
"I'm intimidated," Kurt Marsh Jr. said.
Marsh, a St. John youth who serves as Kean's student council president, said the problem has been going on for decades. It was an issue when his father, who is 41, went to school.
Marsh later said that he has no idea why the Smith Bay young men pick on St. John youths.
The problem is causing young St. John men to drop out of school.
"We send 10 males down and two graduate," parent Abigail Hendricks said.
One parent said her son doesn't want to go back to Kean because of the problems caused by the Smith Bay youths.
Sprauve School teacher Clemmie Moses pointed out that she had to go to the attorney general's office to get students to stop harassing her children when they attended Kean.
In response, St. Thomas/St. John Superintendent Jeanette Smith said that she'd call a meeting to discuss the issue, but a retired St. John teacher said after the meeting that the Education Department knew about this problem for years and did nothing about it.
Parents and some teachers were also alarmed that a St. Thomas student with an apparent disciplinary problem was transferred to Sprauve School. Smith said she was not at liberty to discuss the matter.
The lack of a school nurse to deal with emergencies such as seizures was another hot topic. One kindergarten teacher said she recently had an outbreak of ringworm in her class, but there was no nurse available to deal with the matter.
Previously Sprauve and Guy Benjamin Schools, located at opposite ends of the island, shared a nurse, but the nurse is on sick leave. After Sprauve Principal Mario Francis said that he would call the nearby Emergency Medical Service if a problem arose, Emergency Medical Technician Carol Beckowitz said the island has only one ambulance.
"If we are going out on a call, we are not available," she said.
The Health Department, which runs EMS, has many vacant positions because EMTs have retired, Beckowitz said. This means EMS is short-staffed.
Guy Benjamin School Principal Dionne Wells said she's willing to take first-aid training to assist students, but she said many of the teachers at her school don't want the responsibility. However, Wells said that firefighters trained in emergency medical treatment do respond from the fire station located next to the school.
Terry urged parents to send their children to school when the standardized testing in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 takes place March 16 through 20.
"We have some students not coming to school during the test week," she said. "It's a big, big issue."
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