Nearly 200 Public School Students Dropped Out in 2019-2020 School Year as Continuous Crises Stress the Education and Mental Health of Children
- Ernice Gilbert
- December 16, 2021
The U.S. Virgin Islands since 2017 has suffered successive crises that continue to greatly impact the territory's youth, according to the Kids Count USVI 2021 data book. The book is published by the St. Croix Foundation annually and gives a look into the state of the territory's children in key areas affecting their development. Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged the USVI in 2017, which negatively impacted children. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic which started in March 2020 compounded the situation. According to the latest data book, which was released Wednesday evening at a virtual meeting organized by the St. Croix Foundation, during the 2019-2020 school year, 191 students in grades 7 through 12 dropped out of the public school system. During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world went into lockdown, children in homes without internet access suffered the most. Even so, the dropout numbers are similar to the prior school year's rate, when 161 students dropped out of t...
