Government has approved a business case for a new school to replace the aging Layman E. Scott High School campus on Cayman Brac, Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly has announced.
Speaking last week at the Annual Education Professional Welcome event, which is held before the school year begins, the minister said, over the decades, the school had produced “many, many outstanding students, but not in the best of circumstances”.
The minister told the audience that a business plan had been prepared and approved for the new high school, which would be located on the Bluff.
“We acquired 59 acres of property next to the Cayman Brac Sports Complex,” she said, adding that some of that land would also be used for housing.
Back in 2013, there had been discussions about converting the partially-built hurricane shelter on the Brac, dubbed ‘Hurricane Hilton’, into a high school, but that plan was never realised.
While it was not clear from O’Connor-Connolly’s comments if the business plan she referred to involved the conversion of the hurricane shelter, or was an entirely new project, the Education Ministry later clarified to the Compass that the hurricane shelter site “is not currently the highest ranked option for the new Layman Scott High School”.
Following queries from the Compass, the ministry said, the school project, “as per procurement law requirements, is about to pass through an independently administered Outline Business Case (OBC) process, which will evaluate which option should provide best value of money”.
It noted that the OBC contract had been awarded this month and was due to commence on 1 Sept.
Layman E. Scott High School was officially opened more than 55 years ago, in January 1967, and was known as the Cayman Brac Secondary Modern School at the time. It was later renamed Cayman Brac High School, and then in 2011, it was given the name Layman E. Scott in memory of its first principal.
Bodden Town school hall work to begin in October
In her speech on Friday, 19 Aug., O’Connor-Connolly also announced that work on the long-awaited school hall at the Theoline L. McCoy Primary School in Bodden Town would soon commence.
She told the audience that a contract for the work had been signed, and work on the hall is expected to begin in October. According to previous reports, the school hall, which will double as a hurricane shelter, is likely to take 14 months to complete.
A tender bid process for the 12,633-square-foot hall and a 2,345-square-foot covered walkway was launched in January last year.
O’Connor-Connolly said she also wanted to get sufficient funding in the government’s next budget to “commence and complete the Savannah school hall, because they’re suffering and they need it”.
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