BOE eyes school for CNMI's brightest students

Board of Education member Anthony Pellegrino has floated the idea of developing one of Saipan’s public high schools into a campus exclusive to Northern Marianas’ brightest and most exceptional students.

Plans to set up what officials refer to as a “magnet school” was disclosed during the groundbreaking ceremony of one of the Public School System’s major Capital Improvement Projects in Koblerville last Thursday.

According to Mr. Pellegrino, with the anticipated opening of three additional public high schools on island within the next three years, BOE is mulling over designating one of the new campuses for CNMI’s “cream of the crop.”

“All the best students will be there. These are the students who know what they want to do in life,” said Mr. Pellegrino.

Students motivated into becoming high-caliber professionals in the fields of sciences, law, technology, agriculture, the arts, and others will be admitted to the proposed magnet school.

Mr. Pellegrino noted that the campus will house no less than the entire CNMI’s “brain thrust.”

At the project’s groundbreaking, PSS officials also revealed that close to 50 projects are underway in the school system’s CIP drawing board.

In the construction of two new campuses, PSS has vowed to take a more direct role in its undertaking.

BOE officials earlier promised that PSS is ready to take 75 percent direct responsibility in projects compared to other infrastructure activities PSS has been completed in the past.

The board also expressed confidence the project managers selected to take on the jobs are well experienced and more importantly, dedicated to see the projects’ completion within the targeted deadlines.

Construction is now underway for the $5.5 million Kagman Junior High School as well as the $4.6 million Koblerville High School.

Guam Pacific Power Corporation has been awarded the contract for the junior high while Tano Group has also been granted the contract for the new high school. Some $10.5 million has been appropriated to construct both schools.

The schools are expected to reach completion less than 300 days after the date of initial construction.

The planned high school in Koblerville is designed to include an administration building, dining hall, dining lanai, academic classrooms, toilets, science laboratories, vocational education work shops, JROTC hall, basketball and volleyball courts, gymnasium, locker rooms, concrete paving, and walkway canopies.

The two new high schools are targeted to ease overcrowding at Hopwood Junior High School and Marianas High School.

Koblerville and Kagman are considered strategic locations for the school sites as Board of Education members last year studied the impacts of future population shifts as well as the distribution of the student population.