~ School starts in full Oct. 9 ~
PHILIPSBURG--Milton Peters College (MPC) and Sundial School will be assessing their students’ situation during the course of next week and both schools will start “in full swing” as of Monday, October 9.
MPC and Sundial School General Director Wim de Visser said students in the upper forms of both schools should attend school on Monday and Tuesday, October 2 and 3, at 7:30am. The upper forms include VSBO-TKL/PKL/PBL 4 and 5, and years 4 and up for HAVO and VWO.
Both MPC and Sundial will have a two-day programme in place to assess the students’ situation and see how they are doing. “Depending on their situation, we will continue the teaching process,” he said.
The same will be the case for the lower forms of both schools. All lower form students – VWO 3; HAVO 1, 2 and 3; VSBO-TKL/PKL/PBL1 and 2 and Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) 1 and 2 – should attend school on Thursday, October 5, at 7:30am for an equal programme.
De Visser said all classes will be “in full swing” as of 7:30am Monday, October 9, with the educational process in line with the original schedule.
Sundial and the various departments at MPC will call in parents of their students during the upcoming week for an information session to update them on the whole process and developments in the schools.
Both MPC and Sundial were damaged during the passage of Hurricane Irma on September 6.
The damage to MPC included the destruction of the old gym; in the A building, the roof was partly gone, there was a lot of water damage and looters went into the institution. In the D building, the roof was partly gone, while on the first floor there was a lot of damage and there was water damage in almost all classrooms.
There were holes in the roof of the H building. In the new gym, the windows were damaged and in all buildings louver windows were broken. The other buildings at MPC were “fairly okay.” There is general water damage, most of the computers are safe and the school’s campus has since been cleaned.
The Sundial School gym collapsed, the roof was blown off of the entire hospitality wing and everything was lost, including items in the arts classroom and the drama room. Other damage includes louver windows broken everywhere, water damage in classrooms and damage to schoolbooks. A total of 16 classrooms at Sundial School are okay for use. The campus is now cleaned.
In addition, 26 of the 120 teachers at both schools were evacuated off-island following the passage of Hurricane Irma and they have indicated that they will return as soon as schools reopen. Most of the teachers evacuated to Curaçao and the Netherlands.
