BOE Chairwoman Lucy Blanco-Maratita said they will expand their recruitment efforts to find the best qualified candidate for the position.
“We are not ‘eyeing’ Ms. Sablan,,” she told Variety. “We are opening the position for all qualified applicants to apply. We have not approached Ms. Sablan about the position, nor discussed any matters relating to such position.”
Sablan is the former associate education commissioner for instruction and curriculum who previously applied for the commissioner’s post. When the previous board, by a 3-2 vote, hired Borja instead, Sablan sued the then-BOE members who voted against her hiring — Roman Benavente, Marja Lee Taitano, and Dino Jones.
Blanco-Maratita and now BOE Vice Chairman Herman T. Guerrero believed Sablan was more qualified than Borja.
But in an e-mail on Saturday, Blanco-Maratita said the board will not limit its search to island-based applicants.
“We are not limiting our search to only the CNMI. We will expand our search and include Guam, Hawaii, and the West Coast, depending on budgetary limitations for advertisements,” she said.
The position, she added, will be announced from June 16 to July 18.
“The board’s goal is to hire a new commissioner by Aug. 1, 2008,” she added.
Blanco-Maratita said the board cannot amend any statute in relation to the selection process for the commissioner.
“We want to ensure that we abide by the law and our regulations and that we search for the best candidate to move our system forward,” she added. “We are not ‘reinventing’ our tools and instruments for the search and we will likely use those same instruments we created before but perhaps refine them.”
BOE welcomes suggestions from the Public School System regarding the qualities they want to see in a commissioner.
An applicant should have a master’s degree in some field of education from an accredited college or university; at least five years experience in teaching or education administration; demonstrated knowledge of school systems; excellent communication skills in English; and U.S. citizenship or eligibility to work in the U.S. and the CNMI.
The salary of the education is approximately $60,000 to $80,000 a year plus benefits.
