Territory's Schools in Learning Loss State of Emergency, Superintendent Says; Education Officials Plot Remedial Strategies

Apart from dealing with the chronic teacher shortage, Department of Education officials are also trying to come up with strategies to address learning loss and lagging attendance at the student level. Department heads spoke to senators on the Senate Committee on Education and Workforce Development on Thursday about the challenges that they’ve had in this regard, and plans to resolve them leading into the next school year.

According to Insular Superintendent for the St. Croix District Ericilda Ottley-Herman, there is still work that needs to be done to bring students up to the standards of their grade level. “We are in a state of not just triage but emergency when it comes to the skill deficit of our students,” she said.

These deficits require additional strategies particularly in the high schools, Ms. Ottley-Herman explained. “Teachers need to be able to kind of model more around the skills and strategies. We’re seeing where students have to have more explicit instruction and the gradual release.”

“Those models are usually found at the elementary level and so now we have to build the secondary teacher skills and strategies around how do you implement that,” Ms. Ottley continued.

Meanwhile, Dr. Stefan Jürgen, insular superintendent for St. Thomas-St. John told lawmakers that education stakeholders have met previously to discuss ways to address the issue of students going into university and having to take skills courses. “That work needs to continue but we did start the dialogue about the real things we can do in both of our programs to help our students succeed,” Dr. Jürgen added.