EDUCATION Commissioner Alfred B. Ada on Tuesday spoke about the frustrations of elementary school students, teachers and parents with the remote and blended learning implemented by the Public School System in compliance with the government’s Covid-19 safety protocols.
Alfred Ada
During a budget hearing in the House chamber, Ada told the House Committee on Ways and Means, “We have to be honest that the remote learning and blended learning at the elementary school level [have] been a challenge. [They have] frustrated students, teachers and parents.”
In an interview with Variety, Ada said one of the primary goals of blended/remote learning was to help ensure that all public school students did not miss a single day of learning.
For her part, PSS Special Education Program Director Donna Flores told Variety that blended/remote learning helped provide special education students with much needed learning sessions.
Marianas High School principal Jonathan Aguon, for his part, noted the positive impact of PSS Distance Education Program on high school students.
Top issues
At the budget hearing in the House chamber, Ada presented to the Ways and Means Committee the top issues that affect public schools as follows:
• The six-foot social distancing rule has limited the classroom capacity and cut the in-person instruction time in half from six hours to three hours.
• PSS suffered a six-month loss in instructional time due to the pandemic, including the time most elementary school students need for in-person instruction to learn how to read and do math computations, Ada said.
“Remote learning just added to their frustrations,” he reiterated.
But in school year 2021-2022, he said PSS will provide in-person instruction five days a week for elementary school students.
“In each classroom, we will move all the shelves, lockers and other furniture so we can have sufficient space to accommodate 20 to 25 students while observing the six-foot social distancing rule,” Ada said.
In addition, Ada said PSS will continue to work with the Governor’s Covid-19 Task Force.
He said PSS has mental health specialists working with counselors and educators who teach students how to deal with the anxiety and the fear of isolation.
Like all CNMI government entities, the school system’s budget was significantly reduced due to the economic downturn caused by the global pandemic.
But Board of Education Chairman Andrew Orsini told the House committee that federal funding has been “very, very helpful” to PSS, which is “moving forward.”
However, he added, “we still need local funds to continue the operations that we need to perform to comply with federal requirements.”
Board of Education Chairman Andrew Orsini speaks to members of the House Committee on Ways and Means during a budget hearing for the Public School System in the House chamber on Tuesday.
