Anglican schools open doors to displaced students

Wed, Oct 14th 2015, 10:05 AM

The Anglican Central Education Authority (ACEA) has thrown open its doors to Hurricane Joaquin displaced students who will be allowed to continue their education at Anglican institutions tuition free until such time as the schools in their home islands are operational again.

According to Italia Davies, director of the ACEA, they will be able to accept between 75 to 100 students across the four schools under its governance -- St. Anne's School and St. John's College on New Providence; St. Andrew's Anglican School in Georgetown, Exuma; and Bishop Michael Eldon School on Grand Bahama.

"We realize that we have lots of students, especially Anglican students in the Family Islands who have been displaced by Hurricane Joaquin, so what we decided is we will offer them places within our schools for the time being, so they will be able to register without charging them any monies; we will provide uniforms where possible through some of our corporate partners; and lunches and whatever else they may need," said Davies.

Bishop Laish Boyd Sr. and Anglican Archdeacon of Administration, Rev. James Palacious and Davies decided on Monday to offer student placements in the ACEA schools. On Tuesday morning, three displaced Long Island students walked through the doors to St. Andrew's School, the diocese's smallest school, for their first day of school in almost two weeks; while inquiries poured into the ACEA about placements.

Hurricane Joaquin, packing winds in excess off miles per hour at its strongest, devastated several islands in the central and southern Bahamas. Long Island, San Salvador, Samana Cay, Crooked Island, Acklins, Great Exuma and Rum Cay experienced the worst of the storm. Cat Island and North Eleuthera were also adversely impacted.  "We don't have any schools in the affected islands, but we have students who would have gone to the Anglican churches [and] our priests in the affected islands are looking out for their parishioners," said Davies.

No criterion has been set by the ACEA as to who would be accepted into the schools.

"We are open because we realize the government does not have enough space to house everybody, even though they're saying they will house displaced students in their schools," she said. "So anybody who needs to go to school ... if we have the space -- we will be accepting students as much as their facility will allow," said Davies.

The ACEA offer is open to students from Pre-Kindergarten through twelfth grade. ACEA class sizes max out at 25. There is no time frame on the offer.

"Within our minds, we are thinking in the first instance, the students would probably have to be displaced until at least December at the earliest. But for continuity's sake, if it goes until the end of the school year, we would be able to allow them to stay," said Davies. "I don't think the bishop would be inclined to say it's December, we're going to put them out. If needs be, we are prepared to go into it for the long haul," she said.

A dollar value on the ACEA offering has been pegged at between $5,000 and $6,000 per child, considering school fees would be at least $4,500 for the year and adding in the cost of uniforms, which the Rotary Club and Generali Insurance are assisting the school with providing for the displaced students, as well as daily lunch. The ACEA director does not anticipate any of the displaced children who would have attended public institutions in their home islands coming into an Anglican-governed school and having to play catch-up in the classroom

"We use an integrated curriculum, but are basically on par with the Ministry of Education [Science and Technology], so if they were placed in their correct grade levels, it shouldn't be that much of a catch-up or a deficiency," said Davies.

For incoming Family Island students she said it would more or less be an adjustment to class sizes if anything, as many students would have come from institutions where class sizes may have been between 10 to 15 students, or in the case of a high school like NG Major, approximately 20 students.

"We are giving them some continuity as far as their education is concerned, but we are cognizant of the fact that we will have to do additional work with them, because we have to deal with their mental state," said Davies.

"They have what I call a double whammy -- they've gone through the hurricane and lost everything, and now they have to be displaced and come to a new environment and try to deal with that, so it's just our way of being able to offer some kind of healing and be our brother's keeper and assist wherever we can. All of those children in the Family Islands are our children, and are our brothers and sisters no matter what. We're all Bahamians. We're all in it together," she said.

The ACEA offers its students a well-rounded educational product that fosters the development of students' spiritual, academic, physical, social and emotional wellbeing, thereby affording their relevancy and adaptability for future citizenship and life in an ever-changing global environment.

As the two-week mark of the devastating storm approaches in which time, many of the students on the affected islands would not have been in school, Davies said their concern is focused on giving children educational continuity.

"We believe that all children have a right to be educated, and especially in our case, a good, Christian education so that they can prove themselves or make worthwhile contributions to society," said Davies.

The placement offer is part of the Anglican Diocese of The Bahamas & The Turks and Caicos Island's ministry and outreach.

"Our Bishop [Rev. Laish Boyd] always says that next to parochial ministry, our ministry in the schools is the second biggest outreach, so this is just one way of us putting our words into action, and helping our brothers and sisters in the Family Islands," said Davies.

As the ACEA opens its doors to displaced Hurricane Joaquin students, Davis said the ACEA would accept help from anyone who would like to partner with them in assisting the children. She also said she did not know if any of the students would be in need of housing if they had no one to stay with.

"If we could get persons perhaps to open up their homes to some of the children and say they're willing to keep children, then that would even assist some more," she said.

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