Diversity in Schools & Quality

Try Montessori on the East End of St Thomas. That would be the best mix and best education on St Thomas in my opinion.

Several months ago I happen to spend some time playing with numbers related to student makeup and race on St. Thomas. I saw this question and its related, so here goes...

(Based on 2002 census)

The total population is 51,181 for St. Thomas.
Black - 39,369 (77%)
Black Hispanic - 1917 (3.7%)
White - 5297 (10.3%)
White Hispanic - 1159 (2.3%)
Other - 2062 (4%)
Mixed (2 races) - 1,377 (2.7%)

Total K-12th grade students: 11,628 (Kindergarten - 1,005)

Just taking Kindergarten Aged students and pretending the age/grade ranges are equally distributed, kindergarteners would look something like this:
Black - 774
Black Hispanic - 37
White - 104
White Hispanic - 23
Other - 40
Mixed (2 races) - 27

There are 22 schools on St. Thomas with a kindergarten level. If all kindergarteners were equally distributed there would need to be two K classrooms at each school (so 44 kindergarten classrooms). So by demographics alone" a K class would consist of:

Black – 17.5 (so 17 or 18)
Black Hispanic - .8 (so 0 or 1)
White – 2.3 (so 2)
White Hispanic - .5 (so 0 or 1)
Other - .9 (so 1)
Mixed - .6 (so 0 or 1)

Now we all know that the student population is not equally distributed amongst schools, that parents that can send their children to parochial and private schools often do.

The White population on St. Thomas is for the most part made up of the French Community and Continentals. Many Continentals send their children to private schools. The French mostly live in Frenchtown (just outside of town) and Northside; and most are Catholic. So you have many of the French children attending Sibilly Elementary School (a public school which is on the Northside that has ties to the French community) and a few attending Peace Corps School (again on the Northside of the island but not as central as Sibilly) and for Junior High and High School attending Sts. Peter and Paul School (a Catholic school located downtown).

So what do we end up with; since a 'perfect' classroom based on the population would have only a couple white students, if many of the white students are going to a particular public school and/or private or parochial school than the fact of the matter is that most public schools (the school as a whole, not just the K classroom) either have just a few white students or none. Since many in the White community are Catholic when looking at the 8 parochial schools you will find it is similar to the public schools. And private schools end up with perhaps a half Black and half White student population... maybe 1/3 to 2/3. A popular myth is that the private schools are all white students, this is not the case.

With all this said, not all Blacks living in the Virgin Islands are from the Virgin Islands... many are from other Caribbean islands so some of the school children might be from other islands or have parents from other islands. Also not all Whites are from the US mainland – some are from the VI as well as other areas. And we do have some residents from Central & South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia... so there is some diversity in origin/background/history. Overwhelmingly however Caribbean origin is most predominant.

To answer your original question I can only think of 5 schools that you would find a more diverse racial makeup in the student population: Sibilly Elementary School, Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School, All Saints Cathedral School, Montessori and Antilles (the latter two are private schools).

--Islander

Islander,

Thank you so much for providing me with this information you have been very helpful.

Imani

Hello Imani,

Just my two cents worth. 🙂 My kids (white mainlanders) went to Peace Corp Elementary (Peace Corps is just the name it doesn't have a relation to the actual Peace Corps) last year in Kindergarten and First grade. In both their classes they were one of two white kids. So the demographics were very close to Islander's breakdown of a Kindergarten class. The 'others' category were of Middle Eastern descent. My kids are now attending Lockhart Elementary (we moved and it is closer to where we work). I like Lockhart more than the Peace Corps school for many reasons, but mainly because the principal keeps the kids in line. Lockhart is close to the same demographics, but with less white kids.

While the demographics are interesting to me, it is not the reason we put our kids in public school and it wouldn't be a reason to not send our kids to any school. I appreciate Islander clearing up the myth that some schools are all black and others all white since it was a pet peeve of mine that people saw them one way or another.

Teresa

"... All Saints Cathedral School, Montessori and Antilles (the latter two are private schools)"

All Saints is private too, I went there =)

I would recommend Antilles, it has been frequently rated as the top K through 12 in the nation. The reason why I would recommend it, is because it was by far the most learning intensive school I had ever gone to.

John

John- Any idea on the tuition for Antilles?

http://www.antilles.vi/

I believe it is about $5,000 a year, but there is financial aid to help if you cannot afford it.

I would suggest contacting Lynn Woodbury at Antilles with your questions, as I haven't gone to that school since 1984.

lwoodbury@antilles.vi

John

Tuition at Antilles is at least $12,000/year. Montessori is $8,000/year. Both offer financial aid. Diversity at both in the faculty is almost non existent. Montessori teacher's aides are mostly West Indian but the teachers are all white except for one at the high school level.