By Moneth G. Deposa
Variety News Staff

TWENTY-THREE teachers have been added to the list of the Public School System’s highly qualified personnel which now totals 306, or 60 percent of the PSS workforce.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, a public school teacher is highly qualified to teach in a classroom if she he has a degree, certification, and has passed a rigorous test which, in the CNMI’s case, is Praxis.
PSS federal programs officer and acting finance director Tim Thornburgh, in a presentation to school principals, said yesterday the new figure on Praxis compliance is based on the Jan. 12 report of the system’s human resource office.
He said more teachers are expected to be added to the highly qualified list as the results of those who took the tests are received.
The school system’s highly qualified teachers now include three with doctorates, three with juris doctorates; 100 with master’s degrees, and 201 with bachelor’s degrees.
PSS still has two teachers with doctorates who have yet to pass Praxis; 27 with master’s degrees; and 181 with bachelor’s degrees.
Thornburgh said PSS also has 102 teachers, or 20 percent of its staff, teaching out of field.
“The challenge for PSS is to help these out-of-field teachers who are not yet highly qualified, to acquire core content knowledge and become highly qualified,” he said.
In September, PSS reported that 283 or 55 percent of its teachers had passed Praxis.
“We have now a total of 306 highly qualified teachers and we’re right on time for our 75 percent target before the end of the school year,” Thornburgh said.
The federal government mandates that beginning Aug. 2007 all public school teachers in the U.S. should be highly qualified.
Non-highly qualified teachers will only be retained on a one year contract with no salary increase until they achieve highly qualified status and when there is evidence of high student achievement.
PSS, to increase the number of successful examinees, had asked for a three-year extension from the U.S. Department of Education which provides the local school system with about $20 million in grants every year.
PSS, which used to have 512 teachers, now has only 506 owing to resignations and retirements in the past couple of months.
Thornburgh said PSS still needs seven teachers in specific subject areas like mathematics, and science.
“These teachers are mostly needed at Marianas High School, Hopwood Junior High School, and Tinian schools,” he said.