Education
Tearful announcement as Dire Financial Straits to force Ashley’s Learning Center to shut
By Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TurksandCaicos, July 15, 2022 – Ashley’s Learning Centre has revealed the school is facing closure following the Government denial of the school’s request for financing; a massive blow to the special needs community in the Turks and Caicos.
Magnetic Media was told the veto comes from the highest level of government removing any chance for an appeal. Faced with the incredible potential of the institution and the irrefutable proof of what they have already accomplished, the fact that the government, millions of dollars in surplus, would refuse to fund them is confusing at best. The pain of the gathered parents, teachers and founder Angela Williams was palpable.
“Ashley’s Learning Centre is in dire financial straits— I’m sorry to be informing the community in this manner but I felt my back was against the wall” Williams said simply.
The school currently has seven people on staff, seventeen students full time; seventeen in the afternoon; twelve on a waiting list and provides care which is very difficult for islanders to find elsewhere in country.
Ideally, said Williams, the school operating fully would need $432,000 per year to stay open and serve 40 students. At this time, the number of students who pay a school fee fluctuates between 60 and 40 percent of the registrants.
In a Thursday July 7, 2022 press conference, Angela Williams in a room populated by parents and members of the media, said it was revealed that the government did not disagree that there was a need nor did they disagree on the magnitude of that need so the reason for holding back finances remains up in the air.
The government had promised the centre $150,000 but that figure dropped to less than half the sum, and the reason?
“After all the back and forth, some of what was asked was not in the best interest of the children,” Williams said.
The government wanted Ashley’s Learning Center to take on all of the students she served in the days and evenings, full time within four weeks which she said, under advisement from specialists, it was explained that this would have
Additionally she said there had also been inexplicable, almost “personal”, pushback from unnamed government officials.
“Each time I’ve brought specialists into the country I always do a courtesy call to the ministries responsible and for seven years there are persons who have always sat in those meetings and objected to every proposal that international doctors and consultants put forward. It’s always at that level that we’ve heard ‘were not interested’, ’we won’t support this’ so I know it is personal.’”
There were repeated instances of this, once a doctor with forty-years’ experience in the field who was interested in piloting a program in all government schools and bringing a team with him was turned away, a missed opportunity for the children.
Even worse, finances have run out just as the school had signed a partnership with Harvard University which would have seen interns and doctors coming to the TCI in a 5-year program to make sure students were diagnosed and assessed properly as they grew. Without stable finances to actually keep the school open for five years that incredible deal will fall through.
“My final appeal not only to the government, to even the public, is for Ashley’s Learning Centre to continue even if just to pay teachers’ salaries that we need some sort of financial help,” Williams said.
A sorrowful plea was announced, for people not to see her when they thought of the school, instead to consider the students who need care and cultivation which was missing on the local scene.
The Ministry of Education claims statements made by Williams were misleading and said the door remains open to the current funding, the additional funding and a continued partnership. None of the sides have been in communication however on whether or not this relationship is salvageable.
“If we can’t continue I don’t know what’s next for any of the children. I’ve spent two weeks thinking about that,” Williams said as she held back tears.
“I hope I didn’t fail them. I hope I didn’t fail the parents, I hope I didn’t fail Turks and Caicos.”
Her press conference ended in a sense of bewilderment for those attending. A parent offering a bear hug to the crushed founder of ALC, emotions running high and tears eventually allowed to flow freely.