Morale is at an all-time low — at rock bottom. Teachers and staff as well as the students are all affected.
Beginning this morning my wife and I will stage a peaceful protest across from Marianas High School in support of our fellow teachers and demand that the CNMI PSS Commissioner and the PSS Board of Education immediately remove Craig Garrison as the principal of Marianas High School. We will continue to protest until he is removed from Marianas High School and all the termination letters he issued to our fellow colleagues are rescinded. In the event that these teachers and other fellow colleagues decide to join our cause, we will also demand that the PSS Commissioner does not penalize any of them for their participation. We know that we are not alone in this and we are asking our families and relatives, families and relatives of all the affected teachers, current and former students, former and current Marianas High School RCC and FBLA club members, Marianas High School alumni, current and former colleagues, parents of our students, and others who care deeply for Marianas High School and its students to join us. We also urge our fellow teachers at other schools to join us as we may reciprocate their deeds when their turn comes around.
The MHS teachers who are now at risk of losing their jobs as a result of Garrison’s uncalled for action and those that will unwillingly retire because they do not want to subject themselves to Garrison’s crap next school year are some of Marianas High’s finest, and none of them are let go because of any breach in their teaching duties. They will be released simply because Garrison does not like them. Included are all the Carolinian teachers, who will no longer be represented among the MHS teachers next school year. Those that I spoke with expressed their unhappiness about leaving Marianas High School, but most won’t speak out publicly because they fear the immediate loss of their jobs.
Garrison has been deceptive from the very beginning and misled us to believe that he will only release up to nine teachers, which are those that have not passed the praxis tests. But I guess after realizing that most of us are deemed highly qualified under the CNMI PSS praxis policy he had no other choice but to concoct up other reasons such as those who did not pass the high school praxis must go or those who did not earn their college degrees in the fields they are currently teaching must be reassigned, and so forth. These are just some bunch of lies concocted to justify his deliberately calculated deception and unscrupulously designed goals. Contrary to what he said, there are teachers that he is retaining that are far from meeting those criteria.
Craig Garrison is one of the newest employees at Marianas High School. In fact, this is his only seventh month on the job. Yet, he has the audacity to show disrespect to those of us who have made this school our home where we have spent almost our entire professional lives. Garrison ran away from Marianas High School. He left us for Saipan Southern, where his loyalty still remains to this day. In fact, he has been very clear to many of those who work closely with him that he intends to return to Saipan Southern next school year. I was told that two months ago he even submitted an application to the PSS Human Resources Office to return to Saipan Southern as a new vice principal. Isn’t it funny and somewhat contradictory to learn that this ambitious fellow is really lowering himself down to a VP position? One has to wonder because I believe that it has something to do with his loyalty and personal commitment. Why would anyone with such a prominent position in the system (relatively speaking) even consider a demotion? Interestingly I was told that even some highly placed PSS officials were bemused and flabbergasted.
Since hearing of his intention (to return as a VP at Saipan Southern) I began to wonder about all the trees, the stage, and the other structures that he successfully destroyed and demolished at MHS. To many of us at MHS cutting down those trees, many of which were planted by many of our former students, was irresponsible and meaningless. Now with his ultimatum to many of our finest teachers not to return to Marianas High next school year, I am also wondering if his intention is also to ruin Marianas High School’s academic standing as the best public high school in the CNMI. It seems to me that he came to MHS with a vendetta and vengeance to put Marianas High School in an awkward position both structurally and academically. I find all of this really ironic, though, because a highly placed and powerful member of the PSS central office family apologetically — realizing the frantic nightmare that Garrison recklessly created by issuing the across the board walking papers to his Saipan Southern High teachers — told me at the beginning of the school year that Garrison was assigned to MHS because of his management prowess. According to that official there wasn’t any other capable principal available (at the time) to take over Marianas High School. Well, it hasn’t been a year yet, but Craig Garrison has wreaked havoc over our lovely Marianas High School.
Apparently his destruction at MHS isn’t over yet. At the end of the school year Building F, which consists of eleven classrooms will be demolished, and he has told some teachers that he wants to do it to prevent the Commissioner from sending more students to MHS. What is this guy trying to do, to reduce MHS to dust and bring up Saipan Southern as the largest school on island? Someone needs to file a TRO against all these destructions that Garrison is causing at MHS.
Garrison wants people to believe that he cares for our school children. I remember at the beginning of the school year during one of the first meetings he held for us, he broke down crying and admitted that he is also a cry baby when he tried to tell us how sorry he felt for the families that were affected by the reduction of government employees’ working hours as a result of the austerity Fridays. When he regained his composure he urged all of us to be generous to our students, to give them a dollar or two so they can buy what they wanted. Now that he has confidently settled in at this school his soft and aching heart has disappeared, and his true evil color finally emerged. Whether he realizes it or not, the teachers he is ready to ax from MHS will most likely become unemployed, and face the most difficult economic crisis of their lives. Like all the government employees he shed his tears for these teachers also have families to feed, children to send to school, bills to pay, and cars to gas. He is messing with lives of so many people who will be drastically affected by his rudeness and insensitive decision. Now my question is where are all those tears, why doesn’t he cry and shed them for all these teachers and their children whose lives he is ruining?
Perhaps it isn’t known to anyone outside of MHS, but since his assignment to Marianas High School, Craig Garrison has made every single teacher’s life miserable. He ushered in an unbearable climate of fear that he often used as his weapon against us on a weekly — if not on a daily basis — to threaten us that we could lose our jobs if we don’t comply with what he wants. I know it because I have been subjected to it on several occasions. Whether I was alone with him in his office or with him and other fellow teachers he would tell me that I was fired or that I would be reassigned. He thinks it’s a joke. Just two weeks ago on Wednesday April 13th he suggested to me in front of a colleague that perhaps I should look elsewhere for another job. I am still not sure if that was a forewarning of what is yet to come, but that’s okay because at that time I was already at peace with myself and agreed with my wife that in spite of what we both foresee as a period of our family economic hardship as both of us may end up losing our jobs for what we are doing we would go ahead with our plans to stage our protest in support of our fellow colleagues and expose the kind of dreadfully unpleasant and hostile working conditions that many of us at Marianas High School had endured for the past seven months.
On several occasions I have heard Garrison say to teachers individually or in our staff meetings that if we don’t want to comply (with what he wants us to do) then perhaps it is time that we look elsewhere for employment. I have worked under several principals since 1985 when I was first hired by the CNMI public school system to teach at MHS, but I have never experienced such a fearful and threatening working environment.
And, as if his verbal threats on our job security aren’t enough to ruffle feathers, he makes it a point to don his military fatigue every Wednesday, our meeting days, to further instill more fear in all of us. Instead his military outfit has made a mockery of himself that some of our teachers are referring to him as Major Pain or Major Pain in the (you know what).
At staff meetings we are always talked down to as if we are some bunch of morons and clueless teachers who don’t have the slightest idea of what we are doing. For instance, just two days before we went on our spring break during our recent school professional development meeting we were all told that none of us know how to develop lesson plans. And that we must all follow the one he developed because that is the accurate way of developing lesson plans. For the record, Marianas High School has been enjoying the maximum six-year accreditation requirement of WASC, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, for so many years, and Marianas High School has always been ranked at the top of all the public schools in the CNMI. Garrison just got on board last September, and he was also handed MHS on a silver platter. To this day I still believe that he did not come here by chance. I suspect he lobbied so hard to get here because of all the good things that are already in place at Marianas, but unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t be able to genuinely claim any credit for our students’ academic success for many years to come because the teaching staff that currently upholds the academic standards at Marianas High School was assembled by our former excellent principals including Dr. James Denight and Mrs. Karen Borja.
Evidently, we still have seven more weeks left in the school year, and I am concerned that Garrison’s uncalled for walking notices are weighing heavily on many of my fellow MHS teachers’ minds. There is a great deal of uncertainty on everyone’s mind. Even those who will remain for next school year aren’t happy and are also concerned for their job security. Morale at the school is really at an all time low.
Teachers are not the only subject of Garrison’s threats. The Marianas High School senior students are also faced with the possibility that several of them may not be allowed to participate in this year’s MHS school graduation because they may fall short of his 40 minimum required hours of what he calls Service Learning program. Several of my senior students do not want to comply and have decided to boycott the program knowing very well that they may not be able to meet the requirements and will not be allowed to partake in the graduation ceremony. Craig Garrison’s Service Learning hours are nothing but Saturday cleanup days at Marianas High School. He is really exploiting the students and uses them to do his dirty and filthy chores on campus. These custodial jobs were used to be performed by the four school aides he fired earlier during the school year.
Being a parent I know of the enthusiasm that most parents go through to see that their children participate in graduation ceremonies to mark the milestone achievements of a dear member of their families. I can still feel the joy that I had when my son was about to graduate, and to see him walk tall among his fellow graduates made me feel more so proud of him. It’s a wonderful feeling that is really hard for me to really describe, but I feel so sad that some of our MHS senior students and their families this year may not be able to experience it as a result of a silly school policy imposed by an arrogant and insensitive school principal. Craig Garrison has stated explicitly in our staff meetings that the decision for any graduating senior to walk the graduation line on graduation day here at MHS is his and his alone. It isn’t the Commissioner’s or the PSS Board of Education’s.
I believe that Garrison thinks he has the PSS Commissioner and the PSS Board in his hands because of his close and well established connection with them. I also think that he believes that most of the decisions that trickle down from the PSS central office on Capitol Hill actually germinated in his glass cubical office on the first floor just beneath my second floor classroom. At least that’s what he has been implying all along. I am sure he marvels at the idea because he often boasts about how the PSS honchos on Capitol Hill rely heavily on his sound advice. Whether that is true or not it seems to me to be a farfetched idea. Perhaps he is just doing it out of an irresponsible exaggeration to enhance his self image.
We all know that Garrison has the highest regards by the top PSS officials. There is no question about it or else he would be reprimanded, reassigned, or demoted after his botched teacher firings at Saipan Southern High School. He wouldn’t be assigned to MHS either. I am convinced that in his mind he believes he is the indispensable asset of our CNMI public school system, and he will get away with whatever he does because the top PSS officials will never get rid of him.
I know that what we are doing won’t be an easy task to accomplish, not if it is against a person who has such an enormous influence over his bosses, but we can get rid of Garrison if you, the public, give us your unwavering support. We want you to join us and together we can try to restore the highest level of education back to Marianas High School and ensure that all the students receive the education they deserve during the next seven weeks and beyond. We can no longer tolerate the highly toxic working conditions at the school, and we know our colleagues feel the same way. Our students are affected by it and we don’t want to see it prolonged. Enough is enough. Garrison must go, those he wants to let go must stay, and all MHS graduating seniors must walk regardless of whether they earned learning service hours or not.
JAMES YANGETMAI
Marianas High School Teacher
