PSS to promote over 2,100 students this year

Over 2,100 students from public primary and secondary schools are expected to be promoted to the next level this school year, according to the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Services.

Jackie Quitugua, associate commissioner for curriculum and instruction, said Monday that the potential graduates for the current school year is almost the same number in the previous school year.

Quitugua said the five high schools on island—Marianas High School, Kagman High School, Saipan Southern High School, Rota High School, and Tinian High School—are expected to graduate 537 students beginning next month to early June.

Last school year, seniors who graduated from public schools totaled 558.

This year’s batch of graduates is the first group that complied with the CNMI Board of Education’s policy of 28 credit requirements, which was approved in 2006. The old standard required 21 credits. BOE increased from 6 to 8 its credit units for English and from three to six its credit units for math for graduating senior students.

Quitugua said the potential graduates are based on the current school year record of seniors admitted to PSS since the beginning of classes in September 2008. The number, she added, may increase if some junior students complete credit requirements in advance.

From the 12 elementary schools, Quitugua said PSS is expecting to promote a total of 826 sixth graders on Saipan, Rota, and Tinian.

The CNMI has four middle schools—Chacha Oceanview, Hopwood, Tinian, and Rota junior high schools—which expect to promote 824 eighth graders to the secondary level.

The more than 2,100 graduating students do not include the hundreds of kindergarten students that will be promoted to first grade this school year.

Saipan Tribune learned that in SY 2007-2008, a total of 595 students graduated from public high schools, with 44 percent pursuing college here and abroad.

Some 131, or 22 percent, joined the military, while 16 percent sought immediate employment after graduation.

In early interviews, administrators and school officials in at least three public high schools on Saipan said a decline in this year’s graduates is imminent as a result of the new credit requirements for graduation and the anticipated implementation of federalization, which forced some families to relocate off-island with their children.

At Saipan Southern High School, for instance, from last year’s 147 graduates only 107 are expected to finish this school year—the lowest figure in the graduation history of the school.

The decline, school administrators said, was due to the exodus of local families as a result of the economic hardship being experienced on the islands.

At Marianas High School, potential graduates seem “stable” at present as all 215 seniors are expected to march in June.