Public Schools - A Provocative Question

If you are moving to the VI and can't afford private schools and need your child to graduate in the top ten percentile to get scholarships for college you can't afford. Shouldn't you stay in the states and just work hard and save the money for their education??? A nice view is not worth putting your child under such pressure and it is a gamble to say the least. The VI isn't for everyone and it certainly isn't a place to gamble your children's future away.

Teresa

With respect to a college education, it isn't just a matter of who is paying for it; young adults need the academic background to be competitive once they get there. Many public schools here lack basics like sufficient textbooks, competent teachers, working bathrooms, etc. An acquaintance of mine is presently frustrated because her daughter is being taught English by a Haitian with an extremely poor facility with the English language.

Also, you said "they are 12 and 9, so no hurry" and I beg to differ because the quality of one's education is extremely crucial at every level. A poor education, even at 9, can handicap a child's academic potential. She may find herself pushed into remedial classes, failing to ask for clarification when she doesn't understand the material being taught because she feels foolish for lagging behind her peers, etc.

There are many, many challenges for Continental kids in VI public schools and many West Indian educators consider themselves to have a special duty to nurture high achieving West Indian youth in the hope that they will have an opportunity to rise above their circumstances and flourish in college.

When one has options, putting a Continental kid in an educational environment with serious deficiencies in the hope that the kid will be one of the best academic performers, and so will qualify for scholarships, does a disservice to that child. Plenty of local parents have no options and their children need the preferential nurturing from educators to avoid becoming a statistic. I hope your post is simply a matter of your failure to research the VI public school experience for Continental children rather than a serious suggestion for a social experiment featuring your off spring.

Top 10% of a high school graduation is in NO WAY a guarntee of of "scholarships galore".

If you put your children into the private high schools here, they will go to college and probably to somewhere that is usually extremely difficult and competitive to get into and have it paid for by scholarships, no matter what position they graduate in within their class. Nearly all graduates of the private schools wind up in this situation.

A few who transfer in late in high school may not get quite as broad a selection of colleges or as much in scholarships if their GPA and preparation weren't up to the private high school's usual standards, but they will still get into a college and most likely receive some kind of financial aid to help with a chunk of the costs. (I had a son who fit this latter category. He would probably not have gotten into a 4-year university at all if we hadn't moved to STX because he was somewhat of an indifferent student despite being very intelligent.)

If you put your children in the public schools, they may find it too frustrating and/or dangerous, and/or not get the educational support they need to achieve high SAT scores and be prepared for college level courses. If they somehow stick it out and graduate, they will be able to go to college, but not necessarily wherever they want and not necessarily on a full scholarship.

Ok - Let us put it this way - the local population, the teachers, the politicians, and absolutely anyone else that can possibly afford it, keep their children out of the Public Schools - especially at the HS level.
If your only goal is to get yr child into a college that costs more than you can afford, then you should find another way. If your goal is to produce a well-educated young person etc , then ABSOLUTELY find another way.
My daughter was the only white transplanted kid at Central High School on StX and it was the worst experience of my life. She was educated on Puerto Rico and was bilingual and very used to being out of her cultural comfort zone blah blah blah. She actually pretended to be Puerto Rican so that the bullying would not be too bad.

Please search the other posts on this subject on this board.

Hello,
As I stated clearly, this was a provocative question. If you can recall my original post, I mentioned having three children in college. Very Expensive. I in no way meant to imply that my younger children were waiting for freebees. Just paying some huge tuition and housing bills had refreshed my mind of what I am paying for my own children based on scholarships.

My son Dalton is currently #1 in his graduating class of over 400. We are waiting for the final semester results to see if he is the Valedectorian (he has never placed below 2nd in his class) We couldn't be prouder.

Our 12 year old son will be traveling to Europe this summer to represent the US soccer team. He also has been invited to the Belin-Blank Institute in Iowa City Iowa, a placement for gifted children. Exceptionally gifted if you research more.

I'm with you Molly, people here seem to be jumping the gun, ready to attack sorta!

Attack? No. Expressing horror at a seemingly bizarre monetary scheme involving one's children? Yes.
May I suggest that Molly generated exactly the tension that she wished for.

No attack at all. Simply responding that having your child graduate in the top 10% of the public schools in the USVI isn't really going to get them "scholarships galore" or even simply a great secondary school education.

Molly - it sounds like you would be severely restricting your 12 year old son's current activities and opportunities if you brought him to the USVI to live full time. I never would have pulled my oldest son out of his gifted program on the mainland to bring him to STX, not even to attend Country Day or Good Hope. Fortuately he was already in college before I made the move with his two younger brothers and we never had to consider doing that. Now he's about to graduate on Mother's Day weekend as first in his class with a degree in digital technology and animation design. He enjoys spending vacation time with us on STX but there just aren't the right opportunities here for him educationally or professionally. Each family has to look at their own children and evaluate whether the educational opportunities in the islands would be suitable or less than satisfactory. It would not have been a good choice for my oldest son but gave my second son extra opportunities in life. Son #3 is still in high school, so we'll see how it all turns out!

Okay, I get the point. In no way would I ever wish to harm my children. The schools definately sound even rougher than I thought. Bullying, isolating, no running water, limited bathrooms, teachers with limited English, no doubt I get the point. Maybe that great bottle of chardonay over dinner with my husband went a little more to my head than I thought.

We do not have plans yet to relocate full time, eventually maybe. We will be there this summer and for 6-8 weeks over the winter to renovate our property. Thanks for all your input.