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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Teachers Protest School Calendar at Legislature

Public school teachers urged senators at Monday’s legislative session to propose and pass legislation repealing a new school calendar that requires teachers to come to work 10 days earlier this year. The teachers grew angry and protested outside when no action was taken.

In 2012, the V.I. Legislature overrode Gov. John deJongh Jr.’s veto to enact Act 7369, moving up the beginning of the school year by two weeks so that classes and exams could end before Christmas and the Crucian Christmas Carnival. Another act delayed the original deadline for compliance to the 2014-15 school year.

The goal of the legislation was to have students finish the semester before going on break, instead of returning after two weeks off to take final exams.

Teachers unions and the Education Department want to delay or prevent the change because of concerns about teachers working two more weeks one year and about the initial cost and logistics of the change coming in the midst of a budget crisis.

DeJongh called a special session of the Legislature in March, asking for repeal of the calendar change. DeJongh said it was an unfunded mandate that obligates the government to spend millions of dollars it does not have at a time when the government is also facing a completely unresolved $40 million budget deficit.

Education Commissioner Donna Frett-Gregory testified that making the teachers come back to work 10 days early would cost about $5.4 million that it does not have.

The Legislature rejected the proposed repeal 10-4 at the special session. It then considered options for the school calendar in committee hearings in April, but chose not to act after Frett-Gregory testified the department had an alternative plan that might solve the problem. (See Related Links below)

To start 10 days earlier, the school system has to find 10 days in the year to give teachers later in the year – or else pay them for more time worked. To make up most of those days, Frett-Gregory proposed extending Christmas break so classes return Jan. 14 instead of Jan. 7, then getting rid of two and a half days of break during Carnival on St. Thomas. At the time, union officials were cautiously optimistic about the plan, but both locals voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposal, in part out of concern over whether members would actually get paid for the extra time on their current contract.

Teachers and the presidents of the two union locals sat through the entire day of hearings Monday, hoping to spur senators into placing legislation repealing the calendar change onto the agenda. At the end of the day, when the legislation on the agenda had been disposed of, Sen. Nereida “Nellie” Rivera-O’Reilly moved to adjourn, whereupon grumbling rose from the audience and Sen. Alicia “Chucky” Hansen objected, saying the senators should not adjourn but remain in session and “let the teachers speak.”

When senators voted to adjourn anyway, the two dozen or so teachers in the audience erupted in anger and the sergeant at arms spent a minute restoring order, telling louder individuals they would have to leave if they could not be civil.

“It is the position of the majority of the members of the AFT locals on St. Croix and St. Thomas-St. John that the calendar should be repealed,” said St. Croix AFT President Rosa Soto-Thomas. Afterward, the teachers protested outside the Legislature building.

Sen. Donald Cole and Clifford Graham said after the hearing they both agreed with the teachers’ concerns. Cole noted Graham had proposed a bill to let the school system phase in implementation for several years, letting the Education Department decide how much, if any, the calendar could be moved in any given year. Cole said another session was scheduled for April 19 and suggested it was possible some legislative fix might be considered at that time.

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