Marianas High School Battalion Commander Paulo Quidato delivers a presentation on Friday, Feb. 2, in the MHS cafeteria.
Mark Allen Pratt, 3rd left, front row, asks a question during Quidato’s presentation. Pratt is the chief of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Operations for the 8th Brigade of the U.S. Army Cadet Command at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
A VISITING inspector on Friday conducted an accreditation visit at Marianas High School to assess the Dolphin Battalion cadets.
Mark Allen Pratt is the chief of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Operations for the 8th Brigade of the U.S. Army Cadet Command at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
As part of his inspection, the MHS cadets briefed Pratt on their continuous improvement and service learning projects.
MHS Battalion Commander Paulo Quidato said he was “quite nervous” as he shared the research he and other cadets conducted this school year.
Quidato said their continuous improvement project was “aimed to improve” the college readiness of the students who joined the Dolphin Battalion.
“What we really hoped to do was to give our battalion a better understanding of college and to give them a more realistic understanding of their chances of getting accepted into college,” he said.
Quidato said he and his fellow cadets first prepared a survey to find out what percentage of JROTC students at MHS wanted to go to college, join the job market or the military.
He said of the 199 students surveyed, 128 intended to go to college. However, of these students, only 29 knew how to apply to post-secondary education institutions. The remaining 99 did not.
Quidato said based on the information they collected, the battalion decided to launch a project that shared college pathways with their cadets. He and other officers made PowerPoint presentations about applications, letters of recommendation, and other components of the college application process.
As a senior student, Quidato said he had already researched the process for himself, and was glad to lend a hand to others who had not.
“After experiencing my high school years I have a better understanding of college,” he said. “I wanted to share my knowledge with my cadets to give them this understanding that if they want to get accepted [to college] they have to start now.”
In an interview with Variety, Pratt said the cadets still had to conduct smaller-scale team interviews with pairs of students as part of the inspection.
However, he said the MHS cadets’ presentation on Friday assured him that “passing is not going to be a problem.”
He said the cadets were aiming to earn an “honor unit with distinction,” meaning they must score 95% or higher in the inspection.
