In a move that caught even Education Commissioner Cynthia I. Deleon Guerrero by surprise, she is being terminated from her post effective Nov. 5, 2017.<\/p>\n
In her stead, Yvonne Pangelinan, the associate commissioner for student and support services, would serve as the acting education commissioner.<\/p>\n
Board of Education chair Marylou Ada, who spoke with Saipan Tribune yesterday, said the BOE is implementing \u201canother approach as far as education [is concerned].\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked why Deleon Guerrero was let go, Ada merely said the reasons were \u201cpersonnel matters that are very confidential.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCommissioner Deleon Guerrero served us well and we remain positive and focused as we go through this transition phase,\u201d said Ada. \u201cWe are very positive and very focused because we have schools to run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero, as the sole employee of the CNMI Board of Education, heads the Public School System, which has over 2,000 employees.<\/p>\n
According to Ada, the BOE unanimously voted to terminate Deleon Guerrero, who is currently in Honolulu, Hawaii, to attend a Head Start conference.<\/p>\n
In an email message to PSS employees, Deleon Guerrero said the BOE sent her termination notice via email, which said her termination would be effective on Nov. 5, 2017, the day she is scheduled to return to the CNMI. The BOE letter to Deleon Guerrero stated it to be a termination without cause.<\/p>\n
Prior to that action, Deleon Guerrero said she submitted to the BOE last Oct. 6, 2017, a \u201cletter of concern.\u201d She did not specify what those concerns were in her email message to PSS staff but, according to a social media post Deleon Guerrero made later, she said that information would be made public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey never responded [to the letter of concern] except for this termination letter, which I received upon landing in Honolulu,\u201d said Deleon Guerrero in her email. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the disruption that this will inevitably cause, I ask that everyone remains focused and strong in continuing our services, advocacy, and work for our students. Our students have and must remain our focus, your focus. I thank you all for your dedication and commitment to PSS,\u201d added Deleon Guerrero\u2019s email.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero became the education commissioner on Nov. 21, 2016. She succeeded Dr. Rita Sablan after the latter retired as PSS commissioner in August 2016. <\/p>\n
In the period since August 2016 up to Deleon Guerrero\u2019s assumption of office, PSS was functioning through acting commissioners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a move that caught even Education Commissioner Cynthia I. Deleon Guerrero by surprise, she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[39,4067,4151,40],"class_list":["post-263547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-boe","tag-commissioner-deleon-guerrero","tag-marylou-ada","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263547","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}