The Board of Education confirmed yesterday that they have decided to move the Admiral Herbert G. Hopwood Middle School campus from its Afetnas campus to a lot in As Perdido.<\/p>\n
BOE chair Marylou Ada said in an interview that the BOE\u2019s first Capital Improvement Project would be the construction of a new Hopwood Middle School campus from the ground up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a new middle school, but we first have to designate a new public land for that purpose,\u201d she said, adding that the new campus is expected to be built within three to four years. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a big building because we have to house about 1,000 students and we would have a library and cafeteria. We are starting from scratch, so it would take some time.\u201d <\/p>\n
A possible area for consideration is a Parks & Recreation lot in As Perdido, but Ada noted that it was still tentative.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Land is limited] now, and we need enough space for physical education and wellness programs for our students, along with enough space to build an auditorium,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n
For financing, Ada hopes the Federal Emergency Management Agency would assist, along with a co-sharing agreement with the Gov. Ralph DLG Torres\u2019 office.<\/p>\n
However, the lack of architectural plans for the building, along with the lack of a plot of land that satisfies those needs, is hindering further discussions for the new campus.<\/p>\n
Hopwood principal Dr. Rizalina Liwag told\u00a0Saipan Tribune\u00a0in a previous interview that all of its 10 buildings on campus sustained \u201cmajor damage,\u201d affecting about 70 rooms in all.<\/p>\n
Right now, Hopwood is holding classes in the morning at the Marianas High School campus, but Education Commissioner Glenn Mu\u00f1a noted that they would soon be moving to a new temporary campus near the Koblerville Elementary School once the 42 temporary classrooms are completed.<\/p>\n
According to Mu\u00f1a, subcontractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are working 24 hours a day to complete the temporary structures before February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are expecting to move the students of Hopwood to their new temporary campus\u2026in the first or second week of February [2019],\u201d he told the Board of Education\u2019s Fiscal, Personnel, and Administrative Committee during a meeting Jan. 8, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Board of Education confirmed yesterday that they have decided to move the Admiral Herbert…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-291841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-boe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291841","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=291841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}