Commissioner of Education Rita A. Sablan, after consulting with the PSS leadership team and school principals, said any delay will only create a “tremendous impact” on the school system.
“PSS is pretty much ready and set to go,” Sablan reported to the board.
Re-scheduling the opening of classes will require the board’s approval and will mean changes in the school year calendar as well as in school activities.
Sablan assured the board that school administrators are working on a short-term solution to address the daily power outages.
“As standard operating procedure, the short-term solution identified is the procurement of generators that will basically run the water pumps in our schools,” she said, adding that school administrators are very creative in raising the needed funds.
Board member Galvin Deleon Guerrero said all schools must have operational water pumps and water tanks.
Schools, he added, should also ensure that all food vendors can deliver breakfast and lunch to students on time even during power outages.
Sablan assured the board that school principals can address these concerns.
“The schools have been experiencing this power situation for the last six months and so I believe that our school principals and administrators are pretty much ready and knowledgeable on how they would deal with this problem,” Sablan said.
Board Chairwoman Lucy Blanco-Maratita said rescheduling the opening of classes will result in an “arduous process of modifying…all matters related to school preparations.”
Board Vice Chairman Herman T. Guerrero noted that power outage is not an issue on Rota and Tinian.
The private school representative to the board, Scott Norman, said a delay will also mean “adjusting” the schedules of all school competitions.
There’s no guarantee that Saipan’s power situation will improve in mid-September, Vice Chairman Guerrero said, and this is why they prefer to stick to the original schedule.
