Education officials met on St. John last week to receive feedback from parents on plans for Guy Benjamin School in the upcoming 2014-15 school year, the Education Department said in a news release issued Monday.
Guy Benjamin’s enrollment is low and the department said at a recent Legislative meeting that it costs more than $1 million a year to keep the school open. Parents of students at the school, as well as Guy Benjamin teachers, have worried for a few years that the department will close the school.
Speaking during a recent PTA meeting at Sprauve, St. Thomas-St. John Insular Superintendent Jeanette Smith-Barry said the enrollment at Guy Benjamin has continued to decline over the years, jumping from a high of 112 students to the current 55.
At the start of the current school year, Education shifted kindergarten and first grade students from Guy Benjamin to Julius E. Sprauve School because of low enrollment. Many parents were upset because they didn’t want to send their young children on the bus from Coral Bay to Cruz Bay.
As for Education weighing the feedback from parents, Coral Bay resident Anna Adams said, “I think they’ve come to a decision and this was a show.”
Adams is a parent whose kindergarten-age son was one of the ones moved to Sprauve School from Guy Benjamin. She now drives him to and from school in Cruz Bay because she didn’t like the bus environment.
Adams said that if the Guy Benjamin students forced to shift to Sprauve were counted, the enrollment at Guy Benjamin would be close to the 100 students the department said it wants.
Additionally some parents who had children at both schools moved their Guy Benjamin students to Sprauve to make it easier on the parents, Adams said.
Smith-Barry also told the group, which also included a number of parents of students at Guy Benjamin, that they are still able to register their children for classes at Guy Benjamin during early registration sessions held over the next two months, which could help boost the school’s enrollment. Early registration will be held at Julius Sprauve School on March 24.
Education Commissioner Donna Frett-Gregory also explained to parents that the department is looking into the early childhood education concept and has begun discussions with the Human Services Department to look into the feasibility of a partnership that could transition Guy Benjamin into an Early Headstart/Headstart facility serving children up to age 5.
Parents speaking at the meeting offered other options for the future use of Guy Benjamin, the press release indicated, which included transitioning the Guy Benjamin campus into a school for kindergarten-to-third grade while Julius Sprauve would accommodate the island’s fourth- to eighth-grade population, leaving the campus as it is and strictly enforcing the Department’s districting policy, which would allow students to attend the school closest to where they live.
Several residents said during the meeting that they opt to send their children to Julius Sprauve – which has upwards of 200 students – because it is closer to where they work.
“This was a very productive meeting,” Frett-Gregory said afterward. “It was important for us to get input from the parents and to see how we can collectively work out a solution that’s in the best interest for both the St. John community as a whole and the students.”
