About

HISTORY OF ULLA F. MULLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Our school was founded by the Moravian Missionaries in 1840 for the primary purpose of educating children of the slaves. It was housed in the basement of the Nisky Moravian Church and the Moravians were solely responsible for the support and educational programs of the school until 1917 when the islands were transferred to American jurisdiction. After the transfer, the increase in enrollment over the years forced the Department of Education to seek a larger building to accommodate pupils, faculty, and staff. The school was then moved to a building in Subbase. There were many rooms in this building, but due to lack of teachers, three(3) classes were held in one room, even the principalteacher taught two classes (fifth and sixth) under these conditions. Despite the poor condition of the building, having an inadequate number of teachers, no substitute teachers, custodians, or assistants; the school was still able to thrive due to the commitment of a cadre of dedicated teachers. In 1953, Mrs. Ulla F. Muller, upon her return from the Hampton Institute, succeeded Miss Lucille Roberts as principal-teacher. With the rapid growth in enrollment and the need for major repairs, it became necessary to again relocate the school. The new, seven-room school building was constructed in the former Naval Cemetery in Contant. It opened in 1962 and was called New Nisky. It was a great improvement over the old one, but as it was only one classroom larger than the old school, it was still not large enough. The building in Subbase, now referred to as “Old Nisky”, housed the seventh-grade classes from Charlotte Amalie High School, under the assistant principalship of Mr. Harold Bonelli. For a time, these 7th-grade classes were considered part of the New Nisky School.

In the mid-60s, New York University officials selected Nisky to be a demonstration school and the name was changed to Nisky Demonstration School. A Project Director headed the entire program and several coordinators were appointed to train the teachers (drawn from many St. Thomas schools) who were expected to assume new responsibilities.

Training consisted of weekly discussion sessions, demonstration lessons, and workshops conducted by the coordinators, the Directors of NYU professors. An abundance of materials, supplies, supplementary and resource books were made available to teachers and students to measure the students’ achievement, a comprehensive testing program was instituted and the results were astonishing. Great strides were made, especially in Reading, Math, and Language.

Because of the demands of this program and the number of parents who wished to enroll their students in Nisky Demonstration School, the physical plant had to be expanded. With the help of federal funds, more rooms were added to the main building, trailers were brought in and small two-room houses (called relocatable) were placed in the schoolyard to provide housing for the school library, remedial reading, and special education classes. Several other classrooms and a new cafeteria were built, a teachers’ lounge was provided and space for two offices was made available. Conducting classes during construction was, to say the least, a gigantic challenge.

In a way, the demonstration project was too successful. The huge enrollment (at one time over 800) and the constant need for physical expansion made it impossible to continue the project and in 1969 our school ceased its affiliation with NYU.