Senior risk consultant Christine T. Jackson of the Risk Management Service of the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education praised PSS for raising the bar in student achievement, highly qualified personnel, technological advancement, internal financial control and the improvement of schools facilities despite a tight budget.
PSS, she added, is “doing an excellent job.”
“Hopefully you continue these successes despite the budgetary situation you are facing now,” Jackson told Board of Education members, Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan, her leadership team and school principals.
PSS said its current local budget of $31.4 million no longer reflects the actual cost of providing and delivering services to its over 10,000 students, close to 2,000 personnel, 20 campuses and 10 Head Start centers.
“You are doing a lot with a little,” Jackson said.
She visited Saipan Southern High School, Koblerville Elementary School, San Antonio Elementary School and Hopwood Junior High School, and was “impressed” by the way the school system was being run.
Jackson visited Guam before proceeding to Saipan.
She said U.S. education officials and policymakers in Washington, D.C. have already heard about PSS and her visit will “provide more understanding of the actual situation” of local schools.
PSS “is pretty much looked at as a model among territories and even for some of the nation’s school districts,” Jackson said.
The local school system’s initiatives have already “caught the nation’s attention,” she added.
The SAT 10 and SBA testing performance of public school students in all key instructional areas — reading, math, science and English — has indicated a steady growth since school year 2003, PSS said.
Last school year, PSS said its students were again on track to meeting the 50 percent target line on all grade level based on Education Commissioner Sablan’s Adequate Yearly Progress monitoring initiative.
The five-year trajectory for all school personnel to be highly competent and qualified or Praxis compliant is another educational innovation in the insular areas, Jackson said.
She said some school districts in the nation are “having a hard time” meeting their goals.
“We will continue to promote the CNMI as a model to follow in all of the states,” she told local education leaders.
The way PSS utilizes and spends its share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund has also been “observed by us and you are doing a great job,” Jackson said.
$24 million in federal funds have been allotted for the improvement and repair of all 20 public elementary, junior high and senior high school campuses on Saipan, Tinian and Rota.
A portion of the funds will pay for the purchase of laptops for all public and private junior high school students, and for the professional developments of all public school personnel.
“I am impressed with your application of the ARRA money in the schools that I have visited,” Jackson said.
Parental involvement and community partnership are considered hurdles in some school districts in the nation, but with PSS, “parental involvement is not only defined as participation in PTA meetings but there is active parental participation from student learning to school activities and that must be complimented,” she added.
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