St. Michael’s renamed Maud Williams High School
The high school was re-opened in 2000 and the enrollment currently stands at two hundred and seventy-six students. Saint Michael’s High School was today renamed the Maud Williams High School after former educator and Justice of Peace, Misses Maud Williams nee Goldson. Williams who has devoted fifty years to education having ascended from teacher, to principal and then on to general manager of Anglican schools. Though she retired, she continued working for an additional fifteen years doing inspections at the Ministry of Education. Williams said today she was honored to have her name on the school. Duane Moody has this report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
The faculty and staff, guests and various government officials gathered at the compound of the former St. Michael’s College to sanction the school as Maud Williams High School.
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“If you count right up to current, Miss Maud would have put in close to sixty years in education. And the reason why many people don’t know this is because we do not promote and make known these pieces of information. So by naming this school Maud Williams High School, we will be saying to the entire population and to the entire world Williams has made a great contribution to education in this country and we appreciate her for having done so.”
Williams, an educator for over fifty years, is also the sister of the late Phillip Goldson and says she is honored to have her name on the school.
Maud Williams nee Goldson, Career Educator
“I feel honored, they must have thought a great deal of me for giving me that honor. And when you’re given an honor like that, you accept, you don’t throw it back in people’s faces. I want to see the school move forward and for that to happening I will have to work with the board and my intention is not to tell the board what to do and what not to do but through dialogue, we can come up with decisions that will benefit the students the teachers and the community as a whole. It’s about service to students and there is nothing ungrateful in teaching. Every time a child learns something, you realize that I have done something for that child that will benefit that child for a long time.”
Principal Carolyn Williams says that the school will maintain a standard in education.
Carolyn Williams, Principal, Maud Williams High School
“The values and system that Miss Maud stands for, her pioneering work in education, we want to continue that here at St. Michael’s. A lot of the students who were here were those students who may have been in problem with the law, who may have dropped out of school or decided to come to school a little later than other students. Right now, for last school year, we had all the number of students who did C.X.C., all of them with grade one and two in Chemistry and Biology, General Bio, H.S.B., in Spanish, in the Business Courses, E.D.P. And so our students are proving that they are not really last chance—we’re not a last chance school, we are a school that takes any student and we don’t discriminate against who can be here.”
Patrick Faber
“You’ve seen what we’ve done at Gwen Liz High School where we have made an adult program in the evening. It is our intention to pilot that program a little longer and start that program in all the government high schools. I’m talking about Excelsior, Maud Williams High, Sadie Vernon and of course, E.P. Yorke on the north side. But the plan is to get as many students that high school equivalency or high school diploma because we’re finding out that that is by far the piece of qualification that they need in order to get a good job and be productive in our society.”
Following the ceremony, the students were given the rest of the day off. Duane Moody, reporting for News Five.
The school will make slight changes to its insignia, song and emblem to reflect the changes.
