January reopening for Alma Parris Memorial Secondary

he Alma Parris Memorial Secondary School will reopen in January 2025 as the Ministry of Education tries to meet the growing demand for special education.

The decision announced on Wednesday follows what the ministry described as “an increased number of persons presenting with autism and other challenges”.

Admitting to an inability to properly cater to the rising demand due to a lack of resources, Minister of Education Kay McConney told journalists at a press conference that the ministry is developing a comprehensive plan to address the challenges.

“Let me be straight. The ministry does not have at this time the resources to address every single challenge and every single child,” she said. “But we are working on a plan for us to be able to properly quantify the need and then be able to build the partnerships that will allow us to respond in a more fulsome way to the entire need.”

The reopening of the Speightstown, St Peter-based institution is one of several initiatives aimed at meeting this demand.

Alma Parris, which was closed in 2017 amid public criticism, was initially established as an alternative secondary school for students who scored poorly in the Common Entrance Examination.

The institution will now be repurposed to serve students who require additional support, providing a specialised learning environment tailored to their needs.

The reopening, according to McConney, will involve significant preparatory work as of this month through to December, including special characteristic testing, the development of individual education plans, and efforts to expand capacity.

Noting the importance of diagnostic testing in determining the best interventions for each student, the education minister said, “I have said to the team, 100 per cent of those students who go into that school must have the diagnostic testing completed.

“We must go into January with individual educational plans for each child. It cannot be a one-size-fits-all, and we have to customise plans to suit each child.”

The ministry intends to conduct pilot programmes with some students before the full reopening to test different methodologies and approaches.

Additionally, McConney noted the need for innovative parental engagement strategies to ensure high participation from parents of children who will benefit from the new school’s specialised environment.

While initial plans call for the school to accommodate 30 students, she shared that the ministry has since recognised the need to increase capacity to at least 80 students to address the growing demand.

McConney said: “We were ready for the 30. We now, as part of this preparatory few months… will be seeking better ways of catering to more, just bearing in mind that there’s limited space on that compound.”

She added that while the ministry is exploring options to expand the facility’s capacity, space constraints at the Alma Parris site remain a significant challenge.

“It may be that we have to see how best we can create additional space that is customised and workable for students with those particular needs,” the education minister said.

Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw echoed the need for increased capacity, noting that the ministry has already expanded capacity in several primary schools to accommodate children with special education needs.

“Between 2022 and this year, we have increased the number of inclusionary spaces in this country…. We have increased space at Bayley’s Primary School, at the Eagle Hall Primary School, introduced an inclusionary unit at the Milton Lynch Primary School, and expanded at St Christopher Primary School,” she said.

Archer-Bradshaw also highlighted the importance of equipping teachers in mainstream schools with the skills to support students with special education needs, given the limited capacity and space available.

“We recognise that every time we look around, we have more and more children who are presenting with different kinds of special needs,” she said. “It is therefore best for us at this time not only to look to increase capacity where we can but to ensure that the teachers who are in the mainstream schools are well equipped to handle those children with special education needs.”

Responding to the announcement of Alma Parris Memorial Secondary School’s reopening, President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Rudy Lovell gave his backing.

“We believe that once reopened, we are confident that this institution will fulfil its intended role of providing students with a quality education. So, we are in support,” he told Barbados TODAY. (SM)