Principal Deal, to start at Preston Albury High School on February 1st

(Lower Bogue, Eleuthera) - Principal Deborah Deal, the very well respected Education Administrator, has told The Eleutheran that she does intend to follow the directive of the Ministry and will be reporting to Preston Albury High School in Rock Sound on Monday February 1st, 2010. 

“I am a Civil Servant” she said, adding, “If that is where they send me, that is where I have to go.”

The Principal who received transfer instructions at North Eleuthera High School after school hours on Friday, January 22nd, instructing her to report the next working day to Rock Sound in South Eleuthera, said she has no problem complying with the transfer. “I work for the Government, if they want to move me I have to go, but it was how it was done to me…I did not appreciate that.”

Mrs. Deal met with the Director of Education, Lionel Sands, on Wednesday in the Capital and said that the meeting went well.

 It should be noted that neither she nor her staff have been involved with the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) protest actions this week and have held classes every day as normal for the less than one dozen students who had shown up.

The Principal, who took over administration of the North Eleuthera High School in September 2009, unfortunately this week had her name sullied nationally, with allegations that are not linked to her personally or her tenure. She was very clear that she is hoping her name would be cleared with a “national apology,” seeing that the damage was done at that level.

“My kids have a willingness and a zest for education that they never had before” she said, speaking with admiration about her NEHS students.  

The Principal with the same eagerness we observed in September when she started at NEHS, shared, “No matter where I go I am going to my best.”

The PTA of NEHS has expressed high praise for Principal Deal and they were the first to voice objection to the manner in which she was being moved. The Eleutheran has learnt this week that there is an underlying dispute with at least one parent that they suspected may have led to the action and perhaps precipitated the protests. A response through national media by the Minister of Education, The Hon. Desmond Bannister was followed by a spate of published reports which unfortunately caught many unsuspecting persons including parents and hardworking students in a callously casted net.

In Eleuthera in general, however,  officials do have very legitimate concerns about child sex abuse allegations and reports of a rise in suicide attempts in school age children across the island since September 2009. Earlier this week, the Minister is reported to have said that to date there have been nine such attempts within the period, with three occurring in January 2010. The child sex allegations are not new and have been reported about earlier - one involving nine boys in Hatchet Bay and another involving the June 2009 arrest of a Security Guard at NEHS for the alleged abuse of 8 female students.