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State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science Sander Dekker is very pleased with the implementation of the new board at Saba Comprehensive School (SCS). This writes the Daily Herald. “I am happy that the conditions have been fulfilled for the school to proceed with the necessary developments and improvements to be able to offer Saba’s pupils education in accordance with the Dutch quality standards,” Dekker said.
As laid down in the Education Agenda of 2011, which was signed by all education stakeholders concerned, schools on Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba will have to comply with the basic Dutch educational standards by 2016. SCS encountered many challenges in 2014. A new Educational Taskforce (ETF) was formed, to help the school in the process of restoring tranquillity and getting back on track with the process to improve education.
EFT consists of Commissioner of Education Chris Johnson and Secondary Education Board coaches Wim Littooij and Sjoerd Slagter of the Dutch Council for Secondary Education VO-Raad. EFT analysed the situation at SCS in terms of governance, the educational level and quality and implemented a number of measures. According to ETF, all conditions are met for the school to successfully proceed with the education-improvement process, at this moment. State Secretary Dekker said he was grateful for ETF’s work and especially for Commissioner Johnson’s efforts, including those that led to the formation of a new school board.
Mr. Dekker may be happy but I don’t see anything getting better at that school. I hopes this new board can fix all that going on up there as my child not happy and I see what going on and it a very different place than when Mr. Hemmie ran things when the pupils and teachers look happy. This new board still don’t have any parent on it and they not elected. If they have so much say I dont feel they should be picked by Commissioner Johnson as he just worry about his election and he did noting to stop all that confusion last year. Too little too late I feel and come voting time we sends a clear message that a Commissioner of Education should not ignore our kids.
First of all I like to congratulate the new appointed board members by Commissioner Johnson. I am confident that Mr. Mommers, Ms Charles and Ms. Simmons will be a breath of fresh air for the school. This appointment will close a chapter of intrigue, manipulation and bullying.
I sincerely hope that the school and especially the students will benefit from the expertise and passion for education of the new board members.
I hope that these new board members also realize the enormous problems the school is presently facing. I will not repeat them but please have a look at my previous contribution on this site and you will understand that it needs a lot of knowledge, experience and commitment to change things for the better to avoid having a school with teachers leaving and students failing.
Mr. Dekker, your compliments all well noted but realize that this is just the beginning of hopefully a 180 degrees change in board attitude. I would therefore like to suggest to keep a close eye on the continues daily running of the school, since this is constantly disturbed by unprofessional management and inmature dissension making. I am specifically pointing at you and your ministry because we know from experience that we can not expect anything from government in this matter.
Sabaguru