ESHS rebuild to be under two-part plan
British Virgin Islands
Government is working with the Recovery and Development Agency and two United States-based nonprofits to finalise designs for a rebuilt Elmore Stoutt High School, according to Deputy Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley.
In the meantime, however, it plans to construct “additional buildings” designed to accommodate both junior and senior students at the original ESHS campus by next spring, Dr. Wheatley said last Thursday in the House of Assembly in response to a question from Opposition Leader Marlon Penn.
These additional buildings will be used at first by ESHS students and later by the Virgin Islands School of Technical Studies after the entire ESHS campus is redeveloped under the larger project, according to the minister.
“Our government through my ministry has been working with the idea to build adequate classrooms to move the senior students from the old [Clarence Thomas Limited building in Pasea Estate] by at the latest April next year to ensure that they are provided more comfortable teaching and learning spaces,” Dr. Wheatley said.
The design and construction plan for those additional buildings has not been finalised, he added.
Larger plan
For the larger campus redevelopment, he said, the ministry is working with US nonprofit Construction for Change and its architectural partner Design 4 Others, which is providing conceptual design services, he said.
“The redevelopment plan will be executed in a phased approach,” Dr. Wheatley said. “Phase one will be the construction of the junior school with the capacity to house approximately 1,000 students in a two-storey
building, and an administrative wing. Phase two [is] a redevelopment of the entire campus, indicating the placement of future buildings, including the Virgin Islands School of Technical Studies, green spaces, gardens, access pathways and main entrances and exits.”
No firm timeline is in place for the larger ESHS redevelopment, he said, and he did not provide a cost estimate or say where the funding would be sourced.
“We are going through the design phase right now. And then we’ll move to procurement after the design phase,” Dr. Wheatley explained.
“Preliminary schematic designs have been completed for the campus redevelopment and the junior school based on a statement of requirement and a user requirement document.”
During May and June, the ministry held stakeholder meetings for faculty, staff and students with question-and-answer segments and invited them to further submit questions and comments over email, according to the minister.
Additional territory-wide public meetings are planned, he said, though he did not name a date or time.
Additional buildings
The entire student body has not attended school on the original ESHS campus for nearly four years. After Hurricane Irma leveled much of their school in 2017, ESHS students were relocated to the former CTL building in Pasea Estate, where all students attended on a shift system until junior school students finally moved into the refurbished Lshaped building at their original campus at the start of the 2019- 2020 school year.
The junior school situation is a matter of urgency, the minister acknowledged, which is why the ministry has decided to move ahead and construct the “additional” classroom buildings before tackling the full ESHS reconstruction.
“We understand that the conditions at the CTL building are not ideal. And we are sorry that the teachers and students had to endure it for so long, but we are working diligently to ensure that this changes, by ensuring that when the junior school buildings spoken about above are completed, these classrooms will be able to be turned over to the technical school, allowing our senior students to be in one space,” he said.
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