Large family moving

Hi Alexandersbunch,

Welcome!!! What island are you moving too?

Here is a link to a page on that will give you several links regarding moving and the practicalities of living here:

https://www.vimovingcenter.com/

Also if you use the search feature on this board, you will also be able to find a great deal of additional information regarding some of your other questions.

This will be a good start. You will probably have additional questions and when you do feel free to come back and post them!!!!

🙂

With the size of your family, I am assuming that education and family resources will be one of your major issues. If you search the forum for previous posts re. the VI school system etc., you will find that the vast preponderance of opinion is that the public schools are a 'no-go' for Stateside transplants and that the options to explore are Private schooling or home schooling.

Thanks for the reply Mell... Thank you! I will check these out! I'm asking questions to get a feel of some things... and I don't feel that my income is anyones concern. I do plan to look into private and or home school. Might I add that where I am the schools aren't 'all that'! I've lived many places and Bermuda being one of them... so I do know how much things cost. Bermuda is where my oldest was born, and it's much more expensive there! Also, I said I'm the mom of 7 and two steps... I didn't mention how many were grown or would be coming! That's not really important, but it isn't 9 I can assure you! Thanks and have a blessed and wonderful day!

I got the impression that all were moving as well. It is not an easy thing to do with just a few let alone 9! Good luck and as you were told, there are answers to be had in the archives and if you need to ask away here.

RL

alexanderbunch,

You probably want to figure the cost of family visiting into your budget. If your kids are grown they will want to visit and airfare ain't cheap. Living on island with one child is hard even if you have a lot of money. Living with more is even harder. Finding a house to fit everyone is hard as well. Most rentals are two bedroom. Are you buying a home, building a home?

Schools have been talked about in length, but my summary is that public is not the optimal choice. Private is really a better choice for kids that have not been raised on island. Homeschooling is okay, but finding a variety of activities for the kids (that are cheap) and finding other kids for play are not always easy. You have to really know your stuff. I found it difficult to home school two kids while learning to live on island. Well I found it impossible.

Good luck to you. My moving story is #13 in case you want to read my story of living on island.

Teresa

Good day all! Not all are grown, I have several elementary age and one middle school age coming. The ones who stay here will be getting tickets themselves when visiting, and ofcourse I will be visiting back home as well. My parents travel all the time and I'm sure will be visiting alot. Home schooling I know much about... I'm going to look into private to start with though. Friends can be found around where you live and at church, so that isn't an issue. I was just curious how the local children take to the new kids?? Nothing in life is easy... but this is sure to be an adventure! Good day, I'm going bike ridding now.

Hi,

I also have a large family. 5 sons and 2 daughters. Five are grown, we will be traveleing with our 12 year old son and our 9 year old daughter to St. Thomas. The dates are not set yet. We are originally from the midwest and still consider it our home-base. We have traveled throughout the caribean for the last 6 years with our children, and even longer without them. After much consideration, my husband and I purchased a villa on St. Thomas. We wish to bring the best of both worlds to our family, but are proceeding with caution. We want to see how they transition to Island life. Our plan so far, which is subject to change at a moments notice, is to go down in November to renovate our villa for 6 to 8 weeks. My husband is a building contractor and our 2 oldest sons have been raised in the family business and will keep our operations going stateside, and obviously traveling down with the rest of their siblings to soak up the sun with us on their off time.

I have been doing a lot of research stateside on what our options are on bringing our school aged children with us. The support from our local school system has been remarkable. All I need to do is register my children as "homeschooled" with our state for the time we will be gone. They will provide all the books for the curriculum that their schools are following (for a fee, but will refund the cost of the textbooks upon their return). They will even be administering chapter and spelling tests over the internet to check their progress. All this from a public school!

I'm not sure if any of this pertains to you and your family, and I've probably rambled on too much. I just wanted to share my families experience on the steps that we are taking to achieve our dream. We would at some point like to live in the caribbean full time, but at the moment we are taking it slowly. We need to see how the older boys do with running the family business and how our younger children adapt to island life.

Please keep in touch, if we both end up on the same island we could start a play group. My children would love to meet some new friends!

Hi Molly! That sounds great, I'd love to keep intouch! You can email me privately and we can keep up with each others plans. That's neat that your school system does that! My one son that will be coming just turned 13 and I have a little girl the same age as yours too. Maybe they too could become pen palls before even meeting on the Island. Have a great day!

Sounds Great! I'll E-mail you later when I have a liitle more time.

Best Wishes,

Molly

Hi Molly! I'll look for your email. (just let me know if you have a problem trying to send it ok)

Looks to me like some people here have bad attitudes though, I have been looking through the post and shocked at some of the replies... and they were ok???
I think it's ok to offer polite advice, etc... that's why we are here. But, maybe if one stuck to the question asked rather then getting into personal issues it would appear to be a more pleasant place to chat.
I will not let it get to me though, I'm not looking for approval, nor am I here to prove myself 'worthy' in anyone else's eyes to live on the Island.
I'd love to possibly make friends and have relationships started before I even go... but it really doesn't matter if that happens here or has to wait till I get there.
I'm turning in soon, so 'Good Night' to all and may God Bless You!

If and when you do move, we would all be interested in how it works out for you. Most of us who post here would be of the opinion that it will not go well. But we would be happy to be proved wrong.

Please post your moving story 6 months or so after you move.

Dear Alexanderbunch

I am answering your statement regarding.. "some people here have bad attitudes". I would like to give you my prospective. The bad attitudes you refer to are actually a response and an early warning system. They are from people who are on occasion .. "too honest" in their attempt to save you from making bad island moving mistakes.

Please don't think that they don't want you to move here. they are just trying to help.

The biggest problems that we have seen are from people who attempt to move lots of kids or lots of dogs to the islands.

You can do it... Like everything else, if you have the strength and tenacity to make it happen, it will happen. BUT...remember it is far more difficult than a couple of old retirees moving to the islands. That is all the "naysayers" are trying to tell you.

Please don't get defensive, remember that this is a wonderful, but VERY DIFFERENT place to live. You will be changing your life from A to Z. If that is what you want and this is where you want to be then bring your kids and dogs and performing roosters and come on down and join the carnival.

So, I'm curious… I have been reading the posts for several weeks. Whenever the local education system has been reference, it has been blighted. In these few short weeks I have just taken it at face value and visualized disingenuous Rastafarian teachers preaching to classrooms of spit-wad F.A.S. babies. Much like it was here in Alaska. But it occurs to me, although so few of us may be fortune five-hundred CEOs; my classmates and I suffered through some of the most wanting of scholastic years, stuck with teachers exiled to the frozen planes to work off their student loans, and yet we managed to fair well enough to survive this America of such high standards. It seems to me that it was never about what the public school was willing to push but how far the pusher was willing to school. My father was always willing to show us kids that with out smarts you don’t have a thing. The public school supplied the social environment and the library card supplied the rest. Now, I am absolutely naive. I have no idea what kind of experience island education is. I believe that the family is the best education system available, but I also am not about to pretend that I understand thing half a world away, so when I ask, I ask in earnest and consideration for my daughter’s future education. What exactly is it about the public system that makes it so ill? Is it just low standards? Is it lack of supervision/faculty? Do these problems prevail in the daycare/preschool level? In that case can anyone suggest a good daycare/preschool (in any case)?

Peace,

Dave

What are spit-wad FAS babies?

Hi Dave,
I agree that most likely there are issues of some sort at the public school... sure are here! Even though my first plan is private, if my kids would like to look into public (they don't like private) then I will do that with my own eyes and ears when I arrive. One of my kids has a myspace account and suggested that he look for friends his age on there and find out what it's like right from them, As well as finding out how they accept kids from other places.

As far as daycare... I plan to do that some when I get there. I also teach ballet (free) as a ministry and will 'try' to introduce that into public schools as well (unless it's already there).

Have a great day!

polarbear- please take the time to read through the posts of at least the last year. You will find detailed descriptions of why we say the public school system is so bad. It is not simply a matter of lack luster teachers, everyone experiences that everywhere. But a lack of books, running water, etc But also as a transplant coming in students are often ostrasized, bullied and have a hard time even understanding what their teachers and classmates are saying to them. As you probably will too. The local dialect varies, but it is hard to understand at first and takes time to master. Some locals are patient with you and some are not.

These are a few of the reasons. This message board is a great tool for all newcomers. If you read as much of this board as you can you will be much better prepared then most newcomers.

Alexanderbunch if you are just looking to make friends, pm people who's stories you like. If you put your story out in the public you have to be willing to take the good with the bad. Locals who have lived here for a while see people come and go out of the islands all the time and your story is not one that seems built for success from out prespective. But since you wont really talk about your situation other then to tell us you have 9 kids who knows.

UCandoit makes the point.

alexanderbunch needs to research not only this forum re education issues from those who have "been there and done that" but also research all the educational problems here which are well documented in the local media. The Virgin Islands Daily News is a hard copy newspaper also on line with an archival research engine while The St Thomas Source online newspaper should also be researched on the subject. The Avis isn't available online but anyone with interest can have copies mailed to them via subscription.

As far as posters' "bad attitudes" are concerned, I'll add to UCandoit's message. Nobody who posts here has a problem with the kids who are coming for a break, for a season. They're looking for seasonal work, just want to deal with the basics and have some fun as well.

What IS bothersome to longtime posters and advisors on this forum is the attitude of potential newbies who immediately take a defensive attitude when confronted with the less than rosy picture which is the reality. Those with children in particular (animals a far second) need to first research everything available online and then, if they still think it seems like a good idea, spend money on an intensive pmv.

Even doing all of that and being still confident about the move, the reality of actually living here day to day can be crushing to an enormous extent, as evidenced by the transient population which probably number more than threescore and ten in every year and that's excluding the seasonal workers.

As far as "old retirees" moving to the island which UCandoit mentioned, those are unfortunately few and far between. The majority of those who relocate here in their 30's and make this their longtime home, move back to the mainland when they reach that certain age when medical problems necessitate that they have access to a variety of first-class medical facilities. That's not a negative but a reality.

Some "monied" over 50's can afford the luxury of having a home here along with a stateside base. They live here for a couple of months on and off during the year and either rent out their house via a management company or close it up with an on-site maintenance property manager (but in the latter case we're talking big bucks!)

Local "bahn-here's" also fall into the category of transplants once they get older. There are many former local high-end Government employees who post their comments about island politics from off-island. Not on this forum but via other media venues.

Although they made a lot of money :serving the people" as legislators and were able to stash away a bunch of (kick-back undeclared) money in the process, they didn't hoof it out of here because they were rousted but because they were getting older and could well afford a much better life at much less cost than that afforded here. Their local holdings they rent out.

Point made? Probably not. Those with stars in their eyes will unfortunately seek woods versus trees. The only advice I can give you is to research bigtime and via all available avenues. Good luck.

Hi! To everyone who may have been offended to my comparatively mild comment, all I'm saying is that it's not 'what' you say (not always anyway) It's 'how' you say it!! There is no need for insults and never should anyone do that at somebody else's expense, that is not funny and I can't imagine why anyone would think so. With that being said, My next question was in reference to medical care as one ages...

P.S. I was told to look through post and I simply stated my reaction to alot of what I read... I didn't mean that it applied to me or that I'm upset, just making a point!

You keep saying you've been insulted. Who's insulted you? I've reread all the posts and people are encouraging you to read through the archives because there is a wealth of information for someone just starting their research. All of the questions you have asked are there and you will probably find more information so you can fine tune your questions and get better responsed to them. Sure many have balked when you said 9 kids but if you can afford the schooling then more power to you. But you keep going on about how you've been attacked and now its just starting to smell trollish.

If you're not upset you're coming across as upset by the fact that you keep proclaiming everyone is being insulting.
So in turn you are insulting the ones trying to help you.

Dear Betty,
I was accused of being a troll from the very start of my joining the group and the comment was pulled. Was it you? I don't remember and I really don't have time to look back and see...
However, like I just stated, I went through old post as requested and that is where I saw all the negative things said to each other. I hope that maybe it isn't always that way. Yes, I picked up fast on the negative feelings about bringing kids and dogs, but I feel that if one has the money is ones business, don't you?! I understand that money is needed to make it, I've lived on an Island. I think that the point given to most just could be put differently and maybe assume that they have money rather then they do not. Looking at the old post did give me negative feelings about some folks on here... but, I'm a grown women and can get over it!
I do plan to follow advise and proceed with great caution!! I also plan to come down for several weeks this summer before finalising anything, also recommended! If someone has a more personal question, I'm not opposed to doing a private email in regards to issues on a more personal basis. Have a good day!

I assume FAS= fetal alcohol syndrome

As far as retirees goes, on STX at least, there are a sizeable number of 40-50 -60 year-old folks who have semi retired from one life and are now living permanently on STX. Will we be here in 15-20 years? Who knows. But we're here now and having a pretty good time.

My husband, nurse practitioner in private practice on StX until last year, says that medical care for the aging in the VI is mediocre at best, one MUST have the insurance and ability to go Stateside for anything other than reasonably routine care.

Can someone please define 'old age' before we get too far in this discussion?