The territory’s teachers unions, school board, and Career and Technical Education Board expressed concern over staffing shortages and classes being taught by unqualified substitutes due to austerity measures and said they were wary of implementing legislation extending the school year, during Senate hearings Monday.
The Committee on Education and Workforce Development, chaired by Sen. Donald Cole, took testimony on the status of the territory’s schools from union members, the V.I. Board of Education and the V.I. Career and Technical Education Board. The Department of Education is scheduled to testify March 4.
Last year the V.I. Legislature overrode the governor’s veto to enact legislation that would extend the school year by several weeks, while also requiring the first semester to end by Dec. 23. The changes are mandated to be implemented for the 2013-14 school year that will begin in the fall.
When he vetoed the legislation, Gov. John deJongh Jr. said it would do nothing to help better prepare students, "while at the same time costing an estimated $3.2 million in the first year alone to affect it, which the Legislature has not funded and which the Department of Education cannot accommodate without such funds." (See related links below)
Unions and boards all expressed support, in principle, for an extended school year, but raised concerns about its practicality in a time of draconian budget cuts.
"The Board of Education wholeheartedly supports early childhood education. All of the research shows that a quality early childhood program ensures that the child enters school prepared; helps to close the achievement gap; increases the child’s interest in learning and in the school environment; and leads to greater retention and higher graduation rates of students," said V.I. School Board Vice Chairwoman Nandi Sekou.
But the local government has cut education budgets more than once in the past year and the department is currently looking at an additional 5 percent cut, she said, adding that federal funding may be curtailed by a similar amount if sequestration of funds mandated in the 2011 federal budget act takes place, so the changes "may be derailed due to the budget cuts."
"These budget cuts both locally and nationally will have a devastating impact," Sekou said. “We know that our failure to find creative ways to fund our children’s education and support public education will come back to haunt us in years to come.”
“We wish to avoid this scenario and request that you make education a legislative priority and that our budget is preserved, not for our sake but for the sake of the children of the Virgin Islands,” she said.
St. Thomas/St. John Federation of Teachers President Vernelle deLagarde and St. Croix Federation of Teachers President Rosa Soto-Thomas both said their unions did not oppose extending the school year, but both were concerned how it would take place and whether union members would be expected to work extended hours without compensation.
"There’s a cost to this," deLagarde said, noting that on its inception it reduces vacation time by two or three weeks for AFT members.
Meanwhile there are staffing shortages affecting many, if not all schools, and vocational programs are withering on the vine.
"Shortages existed at the start of school in many areas," deLagarde said. “To date there’s a shortage of nurses or none at all at Joseph Sibilly Elementary or Charlotte Amalie High School, for example.” Some classes are being taught on an ongoing basis by substitute teachers, she said.
"An existing substitute pool cannot be the alternative to hiring new employees, nor the answer to dismissals and layoffs when present employees are required to be qualified and certified in order to teach," she said.
V.I. Board of Education member at large Oswin Sewer also decried an excessive reliance on substitute teachers.
"Presently there are too many substitutes in the system, some of whom are not certifiable," Sewer said. “This will impact the Adequate Yearly Progress of some schools. Additionally students will be tested next month without having had a highly qualified, certified teacher. This is very unfair to the children who may not have received proper instruction," he said.
And as the system contemplates expanding its hours, programs from vocational education to instruction for troubled youth in the Youth Rehabilitation Center are growing more severely understaffed.
"The state of career and technical education programs in the Virgin Islands is dismal and becoming worse by the day," testified V.I. Career and Technical Education Board Vice Chairwoman Ilene Garner.
"Programs are being lost; attrition of teachers is becoming commonplace at the end of each school year; programs are being taught by substitute teachers; enrollment of students is down in many programs; and there appears to be little concern for the effective support of CTE programs on the part of most educators," Garner said.
While there are a number of CTE programs, many are less effective than they could be, because they do not offer a rigorous, coherent sequence of courses that provide technical skills and proficiency and lead to industry certifications, she said.
And with the closure of Hovensa, the territory lost one of the better programs: the Career and Technical Education Center Academy on St. Croix. "In August of 2012, 20 of the first graduates from the CTEC Academy who received a full two-year scholarship from Hovensa to attend Texas State Technical College in Waco, Texas, graduated with an associate’s degree," Garner said. "This academy could and should have been saved," she said.
Several union and board officials testified to shortages of teachers in vocational education, math teachers and others, as well as nurses, kitchen staff and groundskeepers. But while other territorial schools are struggling to make do, the Youth Rehabilitation Center’s educational services "are inadequate," said V.I. Board of Education Member Terrence T. Joseph.
"The educational staff consists of one English/reading teacher and one modified instruction teacher. The only mathematics teacher was removed in March 2012. There is no physical education program," Joseph said.
"The educational staff is really dedicated and does an awesome job under very difficult circumstances," Joseph said. “However, more resources are needed to encourage those who are in school to stay in school and get credit for the work they do while at YRC.”
“Their needs include a mathematics teacher, a physical education or recreational specialist, a guidance counselor and a paraprofessional," he said. "These children need services and help; that is why they are there. If we do not provide the services, they will return to the community in worse condition, with feelings of hopelessness, low self-esteem and abandonment," Joseph said.
No votes were taken during the information gathering hearing on St. Thomas.
Present were Cole; Sens. Janette Millin Young, Tregenza Roach, Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O’Reilly, Judi Buckley and Myron Jackson. Sen. Terrence “Positive” Nelson was absent.
