Mrs V

CNMI Education Month is set aside to recognize those who have contributed to the development of our educational system. Thus, says the Governor’s proclamation of November as Education Month.

There were 61 names listed in the Education Day program as 2005 Retirees. There are other personnel who are not retiring but have declared their intention not to return to active duty after the current school term. Some are administrators, others are teachers. Some of the names are well known. Others, less so. One of those “obscure” names is Juanita Villagomez. Oh, it is not that she is not known. She is known alright, but by another name. Where I clock in on weekdays, she is either known as Janet to the staff, and Mrs. V to the students. In public, she is Mrs. Villagomez.

The title itself is a hallmark of her prominent presence at SVS. Teachers and staff call each other’s name with the appropriate titles, at least, in front of the students. That touch of formality may be a hangover from some bygone days but it still conveys the necessary cleavage between teacher and student, on the hand, and of one professional to another, on the other.

This is a paean to all the retirees who are making the move by choice, by age, or by necessity. I could paint a mosaic of the virtues and megaskills of those who are making their gracious exits. Among many, this would include the likes of James Denight and Sapuro Rayphand at MHS, and of course, the Commissioner of Education. But I shall lift up Mrs. V as an exemplar, not exhaustive but representative. Having been my supervisor for the last two years, at least, I am privy to some of her warts and quirks.

Beyond the recognition of her name, both formal and colloquial (the irreverent Pinoys call her, “bossing,” a sample of her tribe’s penchant for mangling the King’s English!) she is known widely for something else. She is SVS personified. Though she truly built on the seeds and nurturing nourishment provided by her predecessors, Mrs. V pushed the envelope further upwards the assessment scale to make San Vicente Elementary School a premier and preferred school for many Saipan children and parents. The symbiosis is clear. She lives for the accomplishments of SVS students, and the cooperative efforts of teachers and parents. Her tutelage drives students to perform well; her drive propels teachers to achieve a level of excellence; her enthusiasm entices parents to participate along.

She is familiar with discipline. Not the discipline of barked orders but the refined sense of recognizing patterns and procedures, trends and probabilities. She grasps the signs of the times and wrestles it to the ground so that new understandings and new technologies serves the educational purposes of the school, rather than just lining up to the newest fad in the teaching profession and the education industry. Discipline pushed to the level of heightened awareness becomes an art. An artist in her use of spreadsheets, database management, and the PowerPoint presentation, she is current in methods as she is traditional in values, intents and purposes.

For the school’s vision, mission and philosophy, she knows her symbols. Children as early as the lower grades memorize the school’s expected school learning results (ESLR) embedded in the letters of the school mascot, the CANARIES. Devoid of specific understanding at first, the children gradually learn through their ESLRs what they are out to achieve in their schooling, and the school’s goals eventually become their very own.

She knows the art of persuasion. She encourages initiative among her staff, and peer review among her colleagues. When occasion of haste emerges and the crucial step of consultation is sidestepped, it had been in my experience in response to immense needs with little time and minimal resources. Always, the cause of the child precedes the convenience of the tutor. Mrs. V brooks no slack when it comes to protecting and promoting the benefit and welfare of the child.

She knows how to work with what she’s got rather than wait for something that might possible come to the school’s succor. She works the sympathy cords for the under dog. She could easily commandeer one of the classrooms and convert it into an administrative office but the shortage of rooms, exemplified by teacher’s aides holding remedial and intervention session on hallway tables and chairs, makes it necessary to give priority to classroom needs before the administration’s convenience. The wisdom of this had been doubted many times given that the school offices sit astride the water course each time the downpour comes too fast for the absorptive capacity of the surrounding landscape to soak up, but she’d rather adapt to the floods than deprive students their classroom.

She cares deeply for the children, their families and the community, not just as recipients of the pedagogy the school offers, but as active participants in the life of the school. She has been pushing for a functioning community-based school management team, and although the success of the endeavor is sporadic, it is nevertheless a hopeful beginning for a practice that is not widely exercised in the system. Parents attend many school activities. In fact, when the school budget is stretched to the limit, the PTA and the Student Council are tapped to fill the gap, and the need just intensifies the deed.

She exhibits the tough love of a religious Order Mother Superior. She is collegial to the teachers and maternal to the staff. “Bossing” is a term of endearment, not of command. One might not agree with her, but because she puts her whole being behind her pronouncements, there is integrity in the decisions she makes.

A drunken driver a few years back severed a few connective tissues in Mrs. V’s musculature, skewering a fragile nervous system. It has periodically taken her under the scalpel, in recent times, more frequently than anticipated. In the sad debilitation of the body, Mrs. V learned what saints and soldiers have long known: action overcomes grief. Direct action empowers though the body screams “Halt,” the spirit has been quick to journey on. For now, a change in service venue is what the doctor ordered, away from the defiant stockinged guardian of the realm brooding over the logistics of rechannelling the flow of cascading waters rushing through her ankles, to perhaps, a quiet mentor of up-and-coming teachers and administrators in the system.

This is a preemptive goodbye. This crusty curmudgeon does not dispense of praise quite easily but she has earned my respect and admiration. Were education trenches be in foxholes, I would not hesitate to follow her lead. For now, it is about No Child Left Behind, and boy, have we got work to do. To the PSS retirees, thanks. To Mrs. V, from my peers at SVS and I, a salute of pride and collegiality.

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Vergara is a Social Studies 6th grade teacher at San Vicente Elementary School