Staff, students, and parents have made it through the first term of this school year. Now is the time for rest, fun and family. However, as we ensure to take this time to rest, there are a few important things we must remain aware of regarding education reform.

Admittedly, the following is very long, but please bear with me, as it’s important we cover it all in one go:

Parish Primary Schools Reset Plan/Implementation Plan

In April, the Ministry of Education presented a plan to transition our public school system from a three-tier system (primary, middle and senior) to a two-tier system (primary and senior).

This plan dictated the closure dates of schools not selected to be parish primary schools, the dates that parish primary schools would be operational, and closure dates of middle schools.

This plan included closing all East End schools in June 2024 and transferring students to Whitney Institute. This was included without the knowledge or agreement of the board of Whitney Institute.

The plan was met with intense pushback resulting in a July public meeting being organised with the intention of uniting a cross-section of schools and rights-holders to call for a pause in aspects of education reform.

In a letter to Bermuda Public School System staff sent in July, it was said that a “Reset Plan” was in development.

This summer, I and other members of the St George’s Prep PTA Education Reform Working Group had the opportunity to meet with the Governance Committee of Education Reform on two occasions after the aforementioned public meetings and release of an open letter.

This committee includes co-chairs education minister Diallo Rabain and Phil Butterfield, as well as Lisa DeSilva, Head of the Education Reform Unit, Kalmar Richards, the Commissioner of Education, Jasmin Smith, the ministry’s exceptional permanent secretary, and Karen Caple, of Innovation Unit, who joined one of the meetings in an advisory capacity.

In these meetings, it was said that the Reset Plan would be ready for presentation and feedback in October. The minister, ERU head and permanent secretary attended a joint PTA meeting with St George’s Prep, St David’s Primary and East End Primary in October, when this was pushed to the end of November.

On November 24 in a sitting of the House, the minister formally confirmed that the Whitney Institute move was no longer taking place. It was the first and only formal update on the matter since April. He also confirmed that owing to the history and legacy rescoring still taking place, no details on school closure dates — ie, a Reset Plan — could be released.

Additionally, no information has been released on how schools’ histories and legacies are going to be scored.

This dynamic is not only unacceptable, it is untenable. School decisions were announced in June 2021. It is now almost 2024 and we still have no implementation plan or cost projections.

This is exacerbating the uncertainty and apprehension education reform has caused, which is being reflected in the number of teachers and students who have left and continue to leave the public school system — data that has not been released.

Additionally, it must be remembered that closing primary schools to establish one primary school per parish was not included in the Progressive Labour Party’s 2020 election platform.

Parish Primary Schools Implementation

Unfortunately, it is explicitly deceptive to take the position that Purvis Primary and Francis Patton have successfully launched as the island’s first parish primary schools.

The parish primary school model is based on a few key features:

1, Establishing one primary school per parish that reflects the values and resources of their parish community

2, Introducing 21st-century teaching and learning models that will improve student outcomes and equip them with the mindsets and competencies that will prepare them for the unique challenges of the 21st century. These models are identified by a parish community through an 18 to 24-month public co-design process

3, Refurbished or rebuilt schools that would be inspiring 21st-century spaces that enhance pedagogy and the school experience overall

4, Adding a P7 and P8, which would allow us to phase out middle schools

To date, no information has been released publicly on the models that have been identified for our first two parish primary schools, how these have been synthesised into cohesive school models, how this has been reflected in infrastructure with designs for new buildings, or whether the requisite teacher training has taken place so that these models can be used with fidelity to deliver the learning intentions of the Cambridge International Curriculum.

A report, or working curriculum document, should have been released before or at the start of the school year, which comprehensively details the above.

Simply adding a P7 to each school — one that is neither adequately staffed nor resourced — does not make a parish primary school a parish primary school.

It would be remiss of us to not acknowledge the disturbing disruption that has taken place and continues to take place:

• Purvis students could not use their school site for the first week of school and a litany of disruption continues there

• Lyceum families have been completely displaced, but thankfully they are being generously accommodated at the Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo. However, the space being used was never meant to be for a full-time classroom

• Some students at Francis Patton must exit the building to use a portable restroom. They have had to do this even in the rain.

These are legitimate health and safety matters, and parents should be very disturbed.

Furthermore, implementation was due for our first two parish primary schools in September. The ministry is now pivoting and claiming that implementation will be ongoing. The only reason this is being done is because our first two parish primary schools were not completed by the Government’s self-prescribed September 2023 deadline. It has not admitted this.

The only aspect that should be ongoing is evaluation. In other words, all teachers should have been trained in the new models in time for a September 2023 start.

While teachers are teaching through the new models, ongoing evaluation would have to take place to ascertain whether the models are being delivered with fidelity, and how this is translating into student outcomes. This would allow ERU leaders to organise support to improve the delivery of the models, and the overall teaching and learning experience in a restorative, not punitive, way.

In 2021, the initial implementation time frame for all parish primary schools was given as 2023 to 2027, which was incredibly unrealistic. During their deeply flawed consultation process, rights-holders stated as much and were ignored. And now, in 2023, it’s obvious this will be impossible.

It has never been said that only elements of the parish primary school model would be in place for a September 2023 start at our first two parish primary schools — and that, because of this, implementation would be ongoing.

Todd Fox, the principal of Francis Patton, is doing an exceptional job keeping his school intact amid these extremely challenging and avoidable circumstances. He and his staff, as well as the staff and principal of Purvis, need to be celebrated and supported.

Misaligned curriculum

The curriculum used in our island’s public primary schools is misaligned. This means that students are doing work that is not meant for their year level. Specifically, they are doing work that is meant for students a year ahead of them.

In other words, P1s are satisfying the P2 Cambridge Curriculum learning intentions, P2 is doing P3, etc. When students reach P6 and take their checkpoint exams, this means they are completing work and a test that is not meant for their age group. This is because when the curriculum was purchased — a curriculum that was never meant to be used for a system of schools — the government of the day did not purchase the “Foundation Year” curriculum that should be used for P1. Instead of fixing the issue, the Government has allowed it to persist.

It is wrong to say that we can retain the misalignment and simply assist the students who cannot satisfy the learning intentions of a curriculum that is meant for students a year older than them. This is illogical and unethical.

The Ministry of Education must release a plan to address this in the short term and long term, which ultimately means transitioning away from the Cambridge International Curriculum and to an effective 21st-century curriculum that can be used for a system of schools. This should be done as part of reform.

Parish Primary Scoring and Schools Condition Survey

Parish primary school sites were identified by a scoring process that used a rubric which is detailed in the Parish Primary Schools Proposal “consultation” document.

The scoring process and consultation process have been thoroughly and repeatedly criticised — publicly by myself and privately by countless members of the island’s educational community.

Scoring was a round-table exercise by a team of five people, including the Commissioner of Education. In other words, scoring was not completed by visiting school sites and collecting data. It was done around a table using the “collective expertise and knowledge” of public school infrastructure of the small group of technical officers involved, including Ms Richards. But it must be remembered that the commissioner’s purview is administration, not infrastructure. Mr Rabain revealed this during a sitting of the House when pressed by the Opposition.

The parish primary schools proposal was prepared between 2017 and 2020. Interestingly, a request for proposal was issued in January 2018 for Condition Surveys of schools.

Two key deliverables were:

• A1.1 Building Fabric Condition Survey: including the identification of building elements, components and finishes (eg, roof, windows, walls, floors, etc) and the application of a rating system against each element based on the condition

• A1.2 Mechanical and Electrical Condition Survey: including the identification of electrical and mechanical (ie, electrical power, lighting and equipment, HVAC, plumbing, drainage and water supply) services and equipment and the application of a rating system against each component based on condition

This is very similar, if not identical, to the bulk of the factors used to score primary schools to identify parish primary school sites.

To date, no information has been shared publicly on this RFP — who won the contract, or its deliverables, when the data of these deliverables should have been used for scoring, and not a discretionary round-table approach.

Strategic Project Management Office for Education Reform

A request for proposals was issued in August 2021 to form a Strategic Programme Management Office for education reform.

Establishing a PMO was also mentioned by the minister in the House in July 2021. This was also articulated in the Parish Primary Schools Decision Report on page 36.

To date, no such office has been established.

Innovation Unit

The involvement of the consultant Innovation Unit in facilitating the co-design of the programmatic aspects of education reform — including signature schools, which we do not have, but rather signature programmes — was announced in a press conference in March 2020.

The minister said: “In light of the existing priorities and delivery responsibilities of technical officers in the Department of Education, it was determined to issue a request for proposal for the procurement of consultancy services for the school redesign methodology and the introduction of specialised or signature schools.”

He continued: “The role of the consultants will be to help facilitate and manage the school redesign and design process for the Bermuda Public School System in tandem with the leadership of the Ministry [of Education] and the Department of Education, the Governance Team and stakeholder groups.”

At this same press conference, it was stated that the Government had initially budgeted $950,000 for Innovation Unit’s first contract. In March 2021, an official government notice revealed that its initial contract would be instead for $2.1 million and would run from March 2020 to September 2022.

An official government notice from January 2023 revealed that its contract had been extended from November 2022 to September 2023 for about $1.9 million.

It was recently revealed that the contract has been extended again from November 2023 to October 2024 for $1.8 million, bringing the total amount of public funds provided to Innovation Unit to almost $5.86 million.

Considering the exhaustive information shared, we must question the internal audit processes for government consultant contract renewals when deliverables attached to Innovation Unit’s RFP have clearly not been met — to the detriment of students, teachers and the country.

The solution

1, Retain the parish primary school vision, but do a full and comprehensive rescoring for school sites using a qualified and independent consultant secured through an RFP. Perhaps the same Condition Surveys RFP. The history and legacy rescoring is cursory, and does not address the actual issues with the scoring process.

This will not only ensure that the most appropriate school sites are selected, it will also give our teachers, students and families a chance to breathe without the anxiety of looming closures. I am hopeful this will improve staff and student retention.

Additionally, the above does not impede school transformation teams from continuing their co-design processes. Parish communities are still able to come together and immerse themselves in a rich co-design process where communities decide what their parish schools should and will be. School sites do not need to be identified for this to take place.

2, Phase out Innovation Unit’s involvement as soon as possible, and allow the Bermudian professionals of the ERU — our best and brightest — to lead education reform. I have absolutely no doubt that they are more than competent enough to satisfy the deliverables of Innovation Unit’s RFP.

For too long our educational professionals have had to tolerate an excessive and oppressive administrative culture that does not allow students to benefit from the full of extent of their training, expertise and decades of experience.

Let’s use the ERU as a testing ground for an Education Authority model. In other words, properly incorporate the ERU through legislation, which it is not at present, and in such a way where the Minister of Education is not able to have direct control or influence.

3, As difficult as it may be, if we are humble, and if we are honest, we must now consider a change in leadership.

The disruption and maladministration of education reform is no longer tenable, and if we continue down this path, not only will our children and our teachers continue to be treated as not much more than collateral damage, but irreparable harm will be done to our public education system specifically, and culture of educational practice generally.

The Minister of Education has been put in an impossible position. Yes, he could have chosen to remove himself, but instead chose to stay at the helm of a sinking ship. However, those who have put him in this position, and have expected his compliance and complicity, are equally if not more culpable.

Thank you for your attention if you’ve made it this far. I warmly wish every member of our community a joyous holiday season; however, when the time comes for us to return, it’s time to get serious and it’s time to get this right.

For our past, for our present, for our future and, most importantly, for our children, it’s time to get this right.

• Rajai Denbrook is the St George’s Prep PTA president, a consultant, media personality and performer who specialises in formal and community educational programming, media, applied and conventional theatre, the vocal arts, and diversity, equity and inclusion. He also has two children who attend a primary school not identified as a parish primary school. He can be contacted at rajaidenbrook@gmail.com