PenDragon - the official magazine of Lyford Cay International School PenDragon Vol 5, Spring 2019 | Page 12

Lyford Cay
International School
3,080 Facebook Followers
@lyfordschool
1,864 Tweets
on Twitter
@LCIS_Dragons
25,570 Likes on
Our Photos
Lyford Cay
International School
1,611 Views on Vimeo
#LCIS #GoDragons
“
I B accreditation brought
openness and ability to
interact in the global
educational marketplace
in new ways.”
Guidelines for accreditation also meant a lot of
expectations. Alessandra Holowesko who was Chair
of the Board, a Board Member and parent from
2002-2018 reflects on the school’s continued and
continuing efforts to reach its highest potential with
academics, a diverse student body, systems and
facilities. “We knew that LCIS could be a national
resource, and that we were going to have to evolve and
institutionalize.” She continues, “During accreditation
visits, [the team] kept hearing that we lacked policies
and strategic pillars, so we set about creating and
annotating our policies, and writing a strategic plan.
There were some tough periods, because change, by
definition, is challenging even if you know it’s the right
thing. I’m hopeful that time period ushered an era of
positive change, and that it help set the school on a
launching pad to bigger and greater things.”
With these improvements, the parents of students
who did not have the income or inclination to send
their children to overseas schools now had a viable
option for their children. There was only one issue:
persistent space constraints. Former headmistress
Mrs Campbell reflects that as far back as the 80s, the
school was affected by business growth when hotels
were being developed in Cable Beach. ”People liked
the small classes, but we didn’t have the small classes
in every grade. You could be as high as the sky with
your education, but if you don’t have facilities to give
it to them with, they’re not going to get it.” Lieblich
remembers limited facilities affecting the school’s
potential in his day as well. “I could see right away
that the facilities that we had at Lyford Cay were
a wonderful environment for primary school, but if
we’re really going to be serious about secondary
school, we were going to have to build a proper
secondary school facility.”
A committed group of parents and corporate partners
donated a large single-integrated Apple computer
and IT internet system and the former school hall
was converted to a facility to house classes for the
upper grades. The school also expanded its sports
regimen and added programmes and academic
classes to retain local talent until it was time for
college. This included formalising an agreement
with the Catholic Bishop of the Bahamas to rent
space for school sports teams to utilise the St Paul’s
Church grounds, the building of a 25m swimming
pool and the clearing of land adjacent to the pool to
put in a first class field for all sports. Vlasov is also
excited about the school’s evolution continuing in
the present day, noting the additional resources and
space of the new campus: “When you have a proper
campus as we will have, it’ll make this a lot easier to
really develop proper varsity teams.”
The theme of growth still influences LCIS today. The
school continues its journey to meet the growing
needs of a student body and community of locals
and expatriates who are attracted to the school
because of its reputation for continuous evolution
and commitment to excellence. LCIS has earned its
way, through several extremely thorough vetting
processes, to international recognition, achieving
the most with its little footprint. In doing so it may
have lost some of its improvisational charm and a
pet goat or two. However, strength has remained as
the footing of the constant ambition to give students
in The Bahamas an education that can stand up to
their peers around the world. And the buildings,
including those at the new state of the art Upper
School campus, still remain pink.
12
Every year on #InternationalDay,
we celebrate the diversity of our
community by recognising the
41 countries represented
on our campus. Prime Minister Minnis spoke at
the groundbreaking ceremony for
the new Upper School campus
on 29 March. Co-curriculars like #GGYA
challenge students physically and
mentally while they explore The
Bahamas on foot, bicycle or kayak. During #FoundersDay, we
honoured Mrs Dala Smith for 30
years of service, Mrs Rose Taylor
for 20 years, Ms Veronica Ferguson
for 15 years and Mrs Shanika Smith
(not pictured) for 10 years.
Our Design Lab gives students
the chance to explore questions
and solutions through our unique
problem-solving curriculum.
#STEAM On #GlobalPlayDay, we celebrate
#InternationalMindedness by
participating in sports and games
from around the world. Our Preschool students participate
in the #LearnToSwim programme,
giving them confidence in the
water at 18 months old! In February, students performed in
the musical, Annie . Congratulations
to the performers, staff and
parents for this rousing success.
Students in Grades 1–8 take the
Measures of Academic Progress
(MAP) to allow teachers to
assess their learning and
reinforce core skills. Congratulations to the
#ClassOf2019. These grads got
into some of the best universities
in the world. #Stanford, #MIT,
#Yale and #Georgetown. Congratulations to Delaney
Mizell (Grade 8, Left) for winning
four medals in swimming at the
#CARIFTA games this year.
Our Senior Boys, Senior Girls
and Junior Boys Football teams
won #BAISS championships and
Nationals in only our second
year in the league.