This movement of teachers is “consistent with the progress being made in terms of effective decision management of the school with special attention to overcrowding and instructional issues,” MHS principal Craig Garrison told Variety yesterday.
MHS has some 70 teachers.
Garrison, the new principal of MHS, said their bell schedule was also “problematic.”
The former principal of Saipan Southern High School said he noted that MHS students had minimal time to transfer between classes.
Garrison said he will clean up the schedule to make it easier for students to get to their classes.
The old MHS schedule also required teachers to have three classes a day.
Ideally, Garrison said, it should be four classes.
MHS was the only school where teachers taught only three classes, he added.
“There were some teachers only teaching two classes, some taught only one class so basically the rest of the day they were doing other things,” he said.
But he said he also wants to make sure that teachers have time in between the scheduled bells.
“Everyone is aware that more planning time for teachers can result in higher achievement,” he added.
He also wants students to have more access to their teachers.
According to Garrison, the reassignment of some MHS teachers will address the need of other schools for more teachers.
He said Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan is “comfortable” with the way he is managing school resources and “being an effective manager” of MHS.
Today, he said they will know who are the teachers affected by the reassignment, and by Monday they will have a new schedule for teachers.
All this was discussed with the teachers and they have no complaints about it, he added.
