After closing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday due to weather-related mustiness, on Thursday St. Croix’s Alexander Henderson Elementary School began sending students to other schools for 15 days as the school system works on the situation, according to the Education Department.
After foul conditions lingered at the school Tuesday, St. Croix Superintendent of Schools Colleen Williams, acting Education Commissioner Sharon McCollum and other department officials met with school staff Wednesday to outline a contingency plan to relocate students at nearby schools. Later that day, they met with parents, some of whom were not happy about splitting up students, especially from the same household. Thursday was the first day of the contingency plan.
“Yesterday went better than we expected. Everybody was in placed: buses arrived on time and the children left on time,” Williams said in a statement Friday.
Thursday morning Alexander Henderson School students along with faculty and staff attended classes at four area schools:
Kindergarten through second grade students were bussed to Eulalie R. Rivera Elementary School; third and fifth graders are at Charles H. Emanuel Elementary School; forth grade and Special Education students travelled further west to Claude O. Markoe Elementary. Sixth graders and Gifted and Talented students moved to Arthur A. Richards Junior High.
Students are reporting to Alexander Henderson School as usual (by school bus or by parents) and then are bused to their respective destinations, and returned to Henderson after the school-day to catch their regular transportation home. Williams urges parents who drop off their children, to do so by 7:45 a.m. so that every student can be transported to their host school on time.
