About a dozen teachers protested outside Addelita Cancryn Junior High School on St. Thomas on Wednesday in the second day of objecting to the restructuring of the school calendar, which would require them to work two extra weeks at the beginning of the school year in the fall.
Signs ranged from a simple "Repeal Title 17, Section 61" to the more elaborate "Where’s my retro? Where’s my raise? Where’s my time to charge my batteries? Where’s my sanity?" Several other signs suggested St. Croix change its Christmas Carnival date, not the school calendar – "Since when is Carnival more important than education?" – and the tried and true "Honk your Horn," which at noon Wednesday was getting a healthy response from passersby.
However, there is an alternative solution to that calendar in the works. Education Commissioner Donna Frett-Gregory told the Senate on April 7 that the new school calendar legislated to start two weeks early and end before the Christmas holidays can start this year without breaking the budget by extending Christmas break and rearranging some teacher work days.
The teachers were not placated by that information Wednesday. Longtime Cancryn art teacher Kukumba Ola-nini said they need a decision now.
Language arts teacher Seymour Davis, who has taught for 22 years, said, "We need for them to make up their minds what they are going to do. The parents, students and teachers all need to be able to make decisions for summer plans."
At the Cancryn protest, Ola-nini said that "all the schools” were planning to stage a protest at the Department of Education offices at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon where a meeting with union and education officials was scheduled.
That protest failed to materialize. However, Frett-Gregory issued the following statement late Wednesday afternoon, following the meeting: “For the past few months, the Department of Education has been working aggressively with union leaders to develop a 2014-2015 school calendar in accordance with the current law,” which stipulates that the first semester shall end by Dec. 23, just before the Christmas holidays, forcing an early start of the school year on Aug. 11, 2014, and closing on June 5, 2015, which are earlier dates than usual.
“Ultimately the department has been compelled to identify creative ways of restructuring the calendar in order to meet the new requirements,” Frett-Gregory said. “Keeping in mind our unions’ concerns, we have worked on a strategy that is primarily focused on giving our students the 1,080 hours of instructional time that is mandated by the Virgin Islands Code. The proposal includes the early start date for school, extends the Christmas break by another week, and includes professional development days for teachers that have been in previous years agreed upon by the union and the department.”
Frett-Gregory said, “It is important that our students are adequately prepared and it is important that our teachers are ready to empower them for success. This calendar, with the professional development days and set number of instructional hours, aims to do just that.”
