Some students of the Sister Mary Patricia Junior High School on the island of Grand Bahama have not returned to the learning institution since the passage of Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
Newly appointed Principal Chakita Flowers-Thompson said, “for grades eight and nine it seems that the enrollment is good. We have a low number for grade seven. So having the opportunity to speak to ZNS welcomed a lot of a parents on Monday. But at this point we’re just identifying kids who’s on our list, once we have contact numbers we’re making contact with those parents to find out why is it that they’re not in school. Now we’ve found a couple of parents who would have been keeping their kids home from the storm, I’m trying to get them back into school now.”
Of the 120 students enrolled, 80 students are missing from school. “Staying home and not doing any school work is not encouraged at all because it causes a learning gap,” Flowers-Thompson said.
