In 1999, Andrea L. Benavente opened the Koblerville Head Start kindergarten school at the urging of her husband Roman, a former Board of Education chairman.
My husband told me, “Do something to make a difference,” explained Benavente.
Not only did she open a two-classroom kindergarten for the area but Benavente ended up inspiring her children to take up the mission as well.
Daughter Darrah, is a counselor with Saipan Southern high school; son Jeremiah, teaches fifth grade at Koblerville Elementary school; and youngest daughter, Annrita, is a teacher-in-training and leads the regular kindergarten class when not taking education classes at Northern Marianas College.
The Benavente mission of passing on the pride of being educators extends far beyond their family however.
Within Head Start, parents are heavily involved in the classrooms and take night courses at NMC to earn their teaching degree.
“It’s a wonderful working relationship between the school and parents who want to be role models for the children,” explained Benavente.
The word “work” holds special meaning for the founder and her family.
Benavente intentionally chose Koblerville to open the school because she wanted to provide working-class families with the opportunity to send their children to a small school as good as any private institution.
From the feedback Benavente receives from both on-island schools and former pupils studying on the mainland, it appears the school is continuing to meet its objective.
“Former students always tell me that they are continually asked, ‘Where did you go to school?’ ”
The answer is simple: the modest but motivated Koblerville Head Start center.
Head Start is one of the longest-running anti-poverty programs in the United States.
The CNMI Public School System counts seven Head Start centers that serve 462 children and their families.
