{"id":289792,"date":"2018-12-05T06:06:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T20:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=289792"},"modified":"2018-12-05T06:06:37","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T20:06:37","slug":"back-to-school-after-yutu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/back-to-school-after-yutu\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to school after Yutu"},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. Army Reserve soldiers with the 9th Mission Support Command and soldiers with the Guam Army National Guard present arms during the raising of the U.S. flag at Saipan Southern High School last Dec. 3, 2018. Students with the CNMI Public School System resumed classes after more than one month due to the impact of Super Typhoon Yutu in late October. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With much of Saipan and Tinian\u2019s schools still reeling from widespread damage, classes resumed this week, over a month after being forced into a standstill by Super Typhoon Yutu in late October.<\/p>\n

Classes for the Northern Marianas College and some Public School System schools started Monday, despite some campuses having to relocate to other schools to resume classes.<\/p>\n

NMC, whose As Terlaje campus was extensively damaged by the typhoon, was forced to share classrooms with students of Saipan Southern High School, which now operates only half-day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re deeply appreciative of PSS and Saipan Southern High School leadership and teachers, who have been extremely helpful as we resume our classes at their campus,\u201d interim NMC president Frankie Eliptico told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m also proud of the staff and faculty who have been working hard these past few weeks to make sure the transition to SSHS and to other locations goes well,\u201d said Eliptico. \u201cThese staff and faculty members care very deeply for our students and they want to make sure the students feel welcome at these new facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin Santos, a junior at NMC taking up Liberal Arts and Natural Resource Management, said, \u201cWe are trying to get back on track as fast we can in order to finish our degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that minor schedule adjustments were still ongoing. \u201cWe are still adjusting to our environment, and I just had my first class in Building B [at the new campus]. It turns out all of my classmates were present.\u201d <\/p>\n

Santos noted that one of his instructors told him that about 30 percent of the total student population went home to damaged homes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to accommodate the students\u2014we have to help them physically and mentally,\u201d Santos said, quoting his professor.<\/p>\n

Angeline Orsini, a 21-year-old student pursuing an associate degree in social work, was excited to meet with her peers after a long period of separation.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026What we were looking forward to most was interacting and engaging with other students,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Orsini is a member of Project PROA at NMC, an organization where students tutor, advise, and mentor other students.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026It\u2019s very exciting to get back on track [and] being back in [the college],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

NMC student government vice president Shanthia Espinosa, a 21-year-old pursuing a bachelor\u2019s degree in rehabilitation, was excited \u201cto see my classmates\u2014it\u2019s been a while.\u201d <\/p>\n

Espinosa was stationed near the SSHS entrance, where she and some NMC staff were giving out folders that contained a map of the SSHS campus that applied to NMC; a notebook; and some writing tools to get students started for the resumption of classes.<\/p>\n

One instructor noted that, despite some minor hiccups, the student turnout on the first day was \u201cexcellent\u201d and well beyond the expected turnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first day went really well,\u201d NMC department chair for languages and humanities Sally Yntema told Saipan Tribune. \u201cThe classrooms have been great and the students are really eager to get back to school, so it made me feel more inspired and optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the next two weeks would be really great for NMC as a community,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

NMC personnel, according to student leadership coordinator Alexis Cabrera, are going all out to make students feel at home.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026We understand that we are at a different campus, but we are doing our best to make the students feel as if they are back in NMC but just at a different location, [like] nothing else has changed and we are still the same services and the same people\u2014just that our site is different,\u201d Cabrera told Saipan Tribune. She was with Espinosa, giving out school supplies for students at the entrance of SSHS.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter where we are, we would still continue to do the same things for our students,\u201d Cabrera assured, adding that there would be a barbecue celebration for NMC students at the SSHS campus today.<\/p>\n

US military welcomes PSS students<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several PSS students were welcomed back to school by Army Reserve soldiers with the 9th Mission Support Command, airmen with the 254th Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers, the 36th Civil Engineer Squadron from the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, and the CNMI PSS leadership on the first day of selected schools on Monday.<\/p>\n

The schools that started classes Monday include the Garapan Elementary School, William S. Reyes Elementary School, Oleai Elementary School, Koblerville Elementary School, Dandan Middle School, Chacha Ocean View Middle School, Saipan Southern High School, Da\u2019ok Academy, and Kagman High School.<\/p>\n

The Gregorio T. Camacho Elementary School, Kagman Elementary School, San Vicente Elementary School, Francisco M. Sablan Middle School, Hopwood Middle School, Tanapag Middle School, Marianas High School, Early Head Start and the Head Start Program are scheduled to resume classes on Dec. 10, 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our soldiers have been seen around our island assisting with the recovery efforts and what better way to welcome our students than by having our soldiers join our PSS staff welcome them back,\u201d said PSS Commissioner Glenn Muna.<\/p>\n

According to a statement from the U.S. Army Reserve\u2019s 9th Mission Support Command, there are 450 service members assigned to the Joint Task Group-Saipan and the Task Force-West on Saipan. <\/p>\n

\u201cStudents were excited to see our service members at their schools,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said. \u201cSome students have asked if these were the same service members that have been out in various villages helping with the debris removal. Students have shared that they are grateful for our service members.\u201d<\/p>\n

All in all, about 3,400 students are reported to have resumed classes Monday. <\/p>\n

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Both Northern Marianas College staff and student government welcomed students with refreshments and school supplies as classes temporarily resume at Saipan Southern High School. (Erwin Encinares)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With much of Saipan and Tinian\u2019s schools still reeling from widespread damage, classes resumed this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":289793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[22169,69,38,1624],"class_list":["post-289792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-mission-support-command","tag-nmc","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-sshs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289792","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=289792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}