By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

FORMER educators expressed frustration over the lack of progress in reopening the Ragged Island school, which has been closed for seven years.

The island was devastated by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, which flattened homes and government buildings. As a result, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) deemed the island uninhabitable.

Mazie Pintard-Poitier, a retired educator with 41 years of experience, noted that when she visited the island in March this year, the school was almost completed but had remained in that state for nearly two years.

She emphasised that the children on the island deserve the same quality of education as those elsewhere.

“It is so frustrating when you see them on television bragging about the accomplishment of other islands or other schools, knowing that are still doing virtual and a lot of them, or some of them, don’t even understand some of the concepts that are being taught virtually, but doesn’t have the capability or the capacity to express that ‘Okay, I’m not getting this point’. You know, it’s really sad and it seems as if no one is seeing this as an issue.”

This year, it was alleged that students were uncertain they would be sitting the GLAT and BJC exam, but the paper did arrive by airplanes last minute. Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) officers stepped in to administer the examinations.

The former Stapledon School vice principal said she heard parents had concerns about officers overseeing the exam.

“If a child asks a question about something that’s on the GLAT, I don’t feel like that officer is fully equipped to explain to the child what the situation is all about,” Mrs Pintard-Poitier said.

“Even to explain to them, ‘okay, this is what you have to do and how you go doing it and all the rest of that’, that’s not the place of a defence force officer or no other officer other than an educational officer. That goes to show how little this government concern about Ragged Island children.”

Acting director of education Dominique McCartney-Russell confirmed to The Tribune that the Ministry of Education’s evaluation and assessment division had “utilised the services of the RBDF to proctor the grade 3 GLAT and BJCs”. She said: “One student sat the grade 3 GLAT, and one student sat BJC exams this school year.”

She added: “The school is being rebuilt. We are pleased that in this new academic year, two teachers have been redeployed to provide instruction to the students in Ragged Island.”

Retired senior educator Mizpah Munroe said it is very disheartening what is happening, calling it “murder”. She recalled a boy now aged eight who did not know the alphabet.

“A retired teacher had to take him last summer while I was visiting the island and she had to try to teach him his alphabet because he was seven years old at that time, and he did not know his alphabet because he was virtual. He didn’t know what to do. He was getting straight Fs, straight across the board.”

She said Chester Cooper, the island’s MP, was at a family member’s funeral about four or five weeks ago and explained at the pulpit he was promised the school would be ready by September.

Ms Munroe added: “You must look at the potential students because there are many parents who are Ragged Island descendants who would like for their children to be schooled in that environment where you have one-on-one teacher contact with the children.

“The classes are small, the children are free, and it’s healthy. There’s no gang-related anything. You know, everything is conducive to good learning. There are potential students here in New Providence and some of the other Family Islands that we can count on if that school is reopened.”

She added that parents do not want the previous principal to return to the school as they desire something new for their children.

Osborne Pintard, a former educator, said a trained pre-school teacher is prepared to take on a role at the school, saying: “She had to leave the island with her children and come to Nassau to enroll them in school because she cannot get a response from the Minister of Education, more representative as to what her future is. She wanted to be in Ragged Island. Her husband is in Ragged Island and things like these are not being said.”

Attempts to contact Mr Cooper received no response by the time of going to press.