June 15, 2001 — With the end of the school year at hand, the Education Department announced Thursday that there will be summer school to make up instruction lost during the three-week teachers' strike last fall.
Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds said that U.S. Department of Education officials approved her request to use $860,00 in federal funds for summer school. Without the funding, she had said, no summer instruction would have taken place.
Summer classes will start on July 2, with a four-week session for elementary students and a five-week session for secondary students, Simmonds said. The department expects about 1,500 students in each district to enroll in the sessions, which will cover language arts, math, science and social studies.
Classes will be held at one high school, one junior high school and several elementary schools in each district, Simmonds said. The department will provide lunches but not bus service.
Concern about the fate of a summer session was compounded because classes started two weeks late territorywide last fall and as much as a month late at some schools because of construction and renovation work that had not been completed by the Aug. 28 scheduled startup.
The summer session will be funded by $500,000 from the federal Goals 2000 program and $360,000 from Title VI funds. Simmonds said there was a delay in securing the funding because of special conditions placed on the Education Department by the U.S. government.
"It’s all part of what has happened with federal funding in the Virgin Islands," she said. "We are now having to account very, very carefully for every penny."
