Teacher defends parents’ right to question East End school changes
Primary school students whose education was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic will face further upheaval and learning setbacks because of the closure of East End schools, it is feared.
Parents were told on Wednesday that schoolchildren from all three St George’s primary schools — St George’s Preparatory School, East End Primary School and St David’s Primary School — will be moved to Whitney Institute Middle School in Smith’s in September 2024 while East End Primary is rebuilt and reopened as a parish primary school in 2026.
It was also announced that Whitney will close as a middle school in 2025 when the last middle school year group remaining there leave.
Closure dates were also revealed for other schools under the parish primary school plan that will result in there being one primary school per parish with the exception of Pembroke, which will have two.
Gilbert Institute in Paget and Prospect Primary School in Devonshire will close in June 2025, Northlands Primary School in Pembroke will begin to phase out with no new intakes starting in September 2025, while West End Primary in Sandys and Port Royal Primary in Southampton will begin to phase out with no new intakes, starting in September 2026.
It is anticipated that the next three parish primary schools — those in Pembroke and Paget — will be open in September 2025.
Dellwood Middle School in Pembroke is to close as a middle school in June 2026 and Sandys Secondary Middle School in Sandys is to close as a middle school in June 2027. In September 2026, the parish schools in Sandys, Southampton and St George’s will be opened.
It had already been announced that Clearwater Middle School in St George’s will close in June for refurbishments before becoming a signature school, and Heron Bay Primary in Southampton will close.
At the meeting, many parents questioned why the primary school students in St George’s could not remain in the parish until East End Primary was ready, rather than moving them to Whitney and then having to move schools again.
The parent of a St George’s student, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “Set aside the disrespect and poor consultation that occurred during the Covid lockdowns and school closures, the question is, where is the business plan for the closure of these three schools, sending children to Whitney Institute Middle School for two years and building a new school?
“Leave aside the absolute disruption for our children and their phenomenal teachers, where is all the money for these transformations coming from? Have they even thought about the budget?
“How much will be saved by closing the schools? How many kids are at the schools currently? How will services for children with learning disabilities be transferred? Again, no information.
“And while they do this, the plan is to send our young children from the East End half an hour away to Whitney, which will be closed for all but one group of middle school students.
“They will have to spend money to refit Whitney, to transport kids from the East End and uniforms, etc, for allegedly two years.
“Again, where is the business plan and budgeting for these moves? The Ministry of Education representatives could not answer any of these questions.”
The parent who was at the meeting added yesterday: “The group of parents last night broke it down very quickly and it seems the best option would be to keep St George's Prep open and St David's for the East End, at least during construction, but I would argue for the foreseeable future.
“Set aside now also the budgeting, the ministry does not have architectural plans for the new school and they do not have a contractor, but they expect to see a new school at the East End ready for children by September 2026.
“We’ve seen this rodeo before with The Berkeley Institute and CedarBridge Academy with delays and cost overruns.”
One public school teacher, who wished not to be named, said: “Parents are right to question all the changes that are happening.
“We know that there was a setback in learning progress due to the pandemic, and shuffling students from school to school to school will also cause learning disruptions and setbacks.”
Parents were also angered that, given the magnitude of the announcement, Diallo Rabain, the Minister of Education, was not at the meeting.
Instead, Mr Rabain delivered the news via a pre-recorded address. Kalmar Richards, the Commissioner of Education, was present along with Jasmine Smith, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education, one other education representative and Tinée Furbert, the Minister of Social Development and Seniors.
The St George’s parent added: “The decision to close these schools is an enormous decision for Bermuda, let alone the East End.
“However, the Minister of Education made it very clear how important we as parents and our children are by not showing up to the meeting. It doesn't bode well for decision-making going forward.”
Instead of the reform of education being focused on the basic need to improve learning there has been a focus on the system and the physical plants.
The Opposition has already stated that it will support the closure of some schools because of the low birthrate and cost of running schools that are well below capacity.
The question that needs to be asked is when will we see the reduction in cost in the budget from school closures and how will this impact on the jobs of the teachers and staff of the closed schools?
It would also be important to know the potential cost of refurbishing or upgrading the schools that will be kept and how long those construction projects will take, considering past school projects have cost overruns and extended deadlines.
The issue is that the implementation of these closures cannot force further chaos on our student population, teachers and parents.
The parish primary school concept is supposed to create a community hub at each of the schools.
This is what makes the plan to bus the East End students out of their community strange and what has caused the parent hostility. The reform programme from the Government will be spread over close to ten years, which means the interruptions will continue during that period.
We are not upgrading a factory but producing students at schools and there needs to be more focus on learning rather than facilities. Teachers need to be supported and given all tools necessary to improve the results of our students.
Parents need to know that their children are safe and being given every opportunity to be successful.
Students need to be challenged to be the best version of themselves so that they will be prepared for the jobs of the future. We can no longer accept lowering the bar at our public schools because that will not prepare our students to compete globally.
Waiting for a ten-year facility and curriculum reform process will fail another generation that needs to be challenged now.
The Government needs to pause before it completely ruins the trust of parents and forces even more parents to sacrifice and send their children to private school. We cannot afford to lose one more student. Please give the teachers a real opportunity to talk about education reform.
Teachers at all levels are frustrated and many of the strong ones are looking to leave the system due to the continuous changes and frustration with it.
Our teachers have moved from being in charge of learning and now are social workers, nurses, psychologists and security guards, and spend an enormous amount of their time as administrators.
Why focus on grading systems when we know the results are subpar? The focus of reform should be on learning. Give the principals autonomy to create an environment that challenges students.
Education needs to become the most important ministry while making teachers the most important and respected career.
Once we make learning the priority, we then need to hold everyone accountable. That will mean principals, teachers, parents and students will need to be held accountable for their role in the success of education.
Residents in the West End are voicing their opinion on closing a school with historical community value and now the East End is being asked to ship their children away from their community. It is time for the minister to focus on learning and be concerned about the increased anxiety being caused by the present reform strategy.
Please hear the voices of the teachers, parents and students. But that can’t be done if the Minister of Education doesn’t even attend the meetings.
Meeting attendees were told that the meeting was confidential and that information should not be shared with the public.
But the parent added: “Well, this is public money, these are about the children of Bermuda's future, so the entire island should be welcome to attend and should be invested in these decisions.”
Ben Smith, the Shadow Minister of Education, said that the stakeholders did not feel their opinions were being valued.
“Bermuda students, like students around the world, have been significantly impacted by the two years of Covid interruptions. This negative impact was compounded by the issues that Bermuda public education already had.”
The Ministry of Education did not respond to questions by press time.
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