May 6, 2009 — The Virgin Islands National Guard will run a new, quasi-military alternative school giving dropouts a chance to get a high school diploma, if a bill approved by the Senate Education, Culture and Youth Committee on Wednesday makes it through to final passage.
If Sen. Louis Hill's bill, The National Guard Youth Challenge Program Act, passes, the territory will join 30 other states and territories that have such Guard-run schools. The school would be called the Challenge Academy and would be a voluntary, co-educational 17 month program for 16-18 year old high school dropouts. It will consist of a five and a half month quasi-military phase during which students would live on base or in National Guard dorms, followed by a full year of post-residential classes. Students will have to meet the minimum requirements for a General Educational Development degree and can receive either a GED or a high school diploma, depending on how the program is set up and what protocols are established with the V.I. Board of Education and Department of Education.
The bill has come up before and was sent back to committee for modification. As set up in federal legislation, the program's operation would be financed 60 percent by federal funds and 40 percent with local funds and in-kind contributions.
And stimulus money and other federal funds are making it easier for states, at least initially, V.I. National Guard Adjutant General Renaldo Rivera told the committee.
"As recently as last week, the National Guard Bureau encouraged each state to establish a Youth Challenge Program," he said. "This program will be funded 100 percent for the first two years."
Adding some details about the program, V.I. National Guard Sergeant First Class Karen Williams said the U.S. National Guard Association is pushing for an additional $25 million for the program, some of which may help build the schoolhouse.
"At present, $5 million of stimulus funds are projected for the construction of a school to house the program," Williams said.
Voting yea on the bill were: Hill, Sens. Neville James, Terrence "Positive" Nelson, Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O'Reilly and Wayne James. No one voted no. Sens. Craig Barshinger and Michael Thurland were absent. The bill now moves on for consideration by the Committee on Rules and Judiciary.
The committee also approved a bill from Williams to set aside $250,000 from video lottery proceeds to fund a Youth Internship Program in the Department of Education. The money would fund a tax break for employers who hire students as part time apprentices.
"Any employer who accepts a student as an apprentice in any field and employs him for not less than six months in any calendar year shall receive a 50 percent tax exemption on the student's salary for total funding," reads the bill's core passage. This is enough to leverage about 83 student apprenticeships/part-time jobs, Acting Finance Commissioner Angel Dawson told the committee.
A bill sponsored by Nelson mandating Education incorporate labor relations, worker's rights, workplace ethics, resume writing, interview taking, basic federal labor law and other labor rights and workplace skill curricula into the existing public school curriculum was also passed. The bills that passed all had identical vote tallies.
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