June 13, 2008 — In the wake of an inspiring presentation to educators across St. Thomas and St. John in January, the Department of Education is sending a delegation to Florida for special training in school-improvement initiatives.
Some 300 people, including education officials, administrators, teachers, parents, legislators, members of the V.I. Board of Education and community partners, will attend the 2008 Model School Conference in Orlando, Fla., June 22-26.
The conference is sponsored by nationally renowned education reformer Willard R. Daggett, president of the International Center for Leadership in Education. Daggett spent a day talking to local teachers in January about innovative approaches to teaching, labeling many schools today "museums." (See "Inspirational Educator Woos Territory's Teachers.")
"The problem is not the failure of our schools," Daggett told the audience. "The problem is we haven't figured out how to keep up with the rate of change. The world outside of school that our kids are going to have to function in has changed four to five times faster than the rate of change in schools."
Daggett specializes in what he calls a rigor/relevance approach to education that forces educators to look at curriculum in terms of relevance to real-world situations, a model that has been adopted by schools throughout the country.
Participation in the conference goes hand in hand with an attempt at "radical reform" of the territory's education system, said Department of Education Commissioner LaVerne Terry.
"Virgin Islands administrators and teachers will be afforded the unique opportunity to meet, collaborate and network with educators from across the nation who have turned around schools and improved student achievement," Terry said in a written statement. "This is a monumental initiative for the department, and we are very excited about the opportunity to take a team from every school in the territory to the conference."
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