{"id":308498,"date":"2019-09-23T06:05:45","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T20:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=308498"},"modified":"2019-09-23T06:05:45","modified_gmt":"2019-09-22T20:05:45","slug":"van-gils-leaving-kagman-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/van-gils-leaving-kagman-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gils leaving Kagman High"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kagman High School teacher Gerard Van Gils, the Public School System\u2019s Teacher of the Year in 2017, is leaving the islands for the U.S. mainland.<\/p>\n

He cited personal reasons for the move. \u201cMy family and I are moving to the mainland so that we can be near family. Many of my wife\u2019s family members are in great need right now. \u2026It is difficult for my wife to be away from them right now and we also have lots of nieces and nephews born and we want to meet and spend time with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Van Gil\u2019s wife is Amanda Van Gils, a physician assistant at Medical Associates of the Pacific.<\/p>\n

He described as being \u201cvery torn\u201d by the decision, adding that Amanda Van Gils has many \u201cwonderful patients\u201d that she has worked with in the last seven years and he has many students he has worked with in the last six years at Kagman High School, as well as his role as executive director of Marianas Young Professionals. \u201cWe are very sad to be leaving but we have to be there for our family right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Gerard Van Gils<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Van Gils moved to island seven years ago, with a plan to stay for just two years. \u201cWe just came here for two years and\u2026 I accidentally became a teacher and accidentally helped create the Million Dollar Scholars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He initiated the college preparation program in 2016 with KHS principal Leila Staffler. He promises to continue working with MyPros and support the Million Dollar Scholars. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will keep\u2026supporting the scholars even while I work in the mainland. \u2026My job has been to work with universities to receive our scholars\u2014give them tuition reduction, housing, food, and academic support. \u2026I will continue to help our students stay in college, stay successful and return to their islands,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Van Gils said that he will also continue to work with teachers and educators in the CNMI. <\/p>\n

With seven years of helping the growth and development of education in the CNMI under his belt, Van Gils is also proud of his volunteer work during typhoons Soudelor, Mangkhut, and Yutu. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was ready, along with MyPros, to respond to the storm and I am most proud that\u2026My Pros stepped up and delivered 70,000 meals after Soudelor. I am proud of our community. We have documented more than 26,000 volunteer hours after typhoon Yutu and we cleaned roads from Pau Pau Beach to Obyan Beach,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Van Gils said that he and his family agree that Saipan is the first place outside the U.S. mainland where they felt loved and at home. \u201cIt\u2019s the first place I\u2019ve felt like my neighbors were my family, first place that I\u2019ve loved my neighbor as myself and that is how my wife feels too. It\u2019s really been our privilege to serve, love, and and live with the people of the NMI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 I will miss Kagman High, I miss them already and it has been a privilege to be a teacher there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kagman High School teacher Gerard Van Gils, the Public School System\u2019s Teacher of the Year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":308499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7442,14415],"class_list":["post-308498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-kagman-high","tag-van-gils"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308498","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}