Attention Mr. Pellegrino

If indeed it is a long-term plan to phase out mainland teachers and replace them with locals, a major issue must be addressed: work ethic.

As a mainland teacher, I was quickly bothered by how frequent absences were among local teachers. The Chamorro Bilingual teacher for my grade at my school was absent so frequently that it seemed that she was out on average of once a week. The last quarter of school she was probably in class less than 20 times in a 45 day period.

Other local teachers were also absent frequently, but this was the worst. Imagine, however, that the budget needed to fund the sub-pool if this was a problem among classroom teachers. Because most of the locals were “program teachers” instead of classroom teachers, there were no subs for them. Instead, classroom teachers lose their planning periods and had to come up with spur-of-the-moment lesson plans.

My principal told me that he had no way to correct the problem, that he could not force this person to come to work. Imagine someone who is missing the work 20% of the time in the real world. They would very shortly be fired.

But this is PSS and the teacher in question has connections and so the teacher keeps the job even though the work was not done! If PSS wants to staff the schools with locals, someone needs to teach them to do their work, and do it well. If all public schools on island had workers like this teacher as full time staff in the classroom, the PSS would have even more explaining to do.

Teachers would not do their work, students would not learn, SAT09 scores would sink even further, and the CNMI would have more problems on its hands.

I am not disparaging the idea that locals should be teachers, far from it. The only way to preserve the good of the culture is to have it in the schools. But something else should be taught. That in the 21st century, if the CNMI wanted to be treated as first class citizens in the US, they need an outlook a little more like the US. Mainland teachers can help with this, if they are not pushed out of jobs, insulted by parents who want their children to succeed without really trying, or treated as interlopers. You asked us to come here and teach. Now act like you really want our help.

Allison Reynolds
1st grade teacher