Education Department, Board Face Deadline for New K-12 History Curriculum

The V.I. Education Department and Board of Education have one year to develop local history courses for every grade of public school after a Superior Court judge ruled the current curriculum does not follow the law.

Superior Court Judge Alphonso G. Andrews Jr. detailed his decision in a memorandum opinion issued Friday that ends a long-running case that began in October 2013 when Mary L. Moorhead, Kendall Petersen and Gregory E. Miller Jr. filed a petition for mandamus against then Gov. John P. DeJongh Jr. and Acting Education Commissioner Donna Frett-Gregory.

The plaintiffs sought an order requiring Education to develop a curriculum to instruct all elementary and secondary school students in Virgin Islands and Caribbean history, as mandated by the passage of Act 7167 in 2010. Prior to that, the Education Department had the Virgin Islands Social Studies Curriculum Guide, created in 1986, that included a content outline for each grade relative to V.I. and Caribbean history.