Marianas High School has found substitute teachers for their social studies and math classes that had been left teacher-less and without instruction for weeks when their original teachers had to go on medical leave.<\/p>\n
To remedy this lack of instruction, MHS principal Cherlyn Cabrera decided to merge an AP History class with a U.S. Government class to give students instruction time, but this backfired as a chorus of some 70 letters to the editor hit the Saipan Tribune\u2019s copy room last Wednesday afternoon, expressing their frustration over the arrangement.<\/p>\n
Since then, Cabrera said, she and other school administrators have talked things out with the frustrated students of the combined classes to get their feedback.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a lot of students they just want to know why? Why is this happening, why am I facing this?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She described the experience as \u201ca lesson\u201d learned. \u201cEvery time I make a decision, especially with those it affects, I need to talk to them and see how they are with this decision. Teachers\u2026were onboard with helping. I had the students\u2019 interests in mind when I made the decision. I thought they\u2019d be glad to finally have instruction and finally have a teacher, but I guess they had other perspective I didn\u2019t think about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes they can \u201ckeep communication lines open.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that although merging classes \u201cis a very common practice in elementary [school]\u201d it is not very common in high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anything, I\u2019m kind of glad that the [Saipan Tribune] article came out today because it opened an honest discussion. Some of them were afraid to tell me things. …It fostered a lot of really good communication with the students. They had awesome suggestions.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that the new substitutes \u201care ready to work with us very, very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education Commissioner Dr. Rita Sablan explained that Cabrera had interviewed several substitute teacher candidates but most of the candidates had also been interviewed in other schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey chose other schools that also had a need for substitute teachers,\u201d Sablan said. \u2018That was the challenge at [MHS].\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan hopes students will be open to Cabrera.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should really be proactive in terms of how we can work with our student body and work with our teachers to review situations and work together to resolve situations\u2026 We could have prevented [this] and worked and helped the students to understand why things happen the way they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the most important thing is we need to assure the parents out there is that the principal has resolved the situation of substitute teachers for the staff on medical leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
She called it \u201cunfortunate that we have three teachers in very critical content areas\u201d out on leave.<\/p>\n
One MHS student who wrote a letter to the editor said they would to talk more regularly with their principal. \u201cThat\u2019s great, we are finally being heard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marianas High School has found substitute teachers for their social studies and math classes that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[2162,650,1223,38],"class_list":["post-192281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-cherlyn-cabrera","tag-communication","tag-rita-sablan","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}