The Public School System celebrated November as Education Month last Monday with a small gathering at the Marianas High School in Susupe that recognized many outstanding teachers and staff.<\/p>\n
The ceremony recognized the year\u2019s outstanding retreats and maintenance administrators staff, instructors, counselors, teacher aides, and teachers from all 20 schools in the CNMI, plus representatives of the Head Start program and pupil transportation.<\/p>\n
According to former Kagman High School principal Leila Staffler, who was this year\u2019s emcee, this year\u2019s celebration was a little more down-scale because of the pandemic. In previous years, PSS would have large gatherings, with all the schools present and all the award nominees joining the ceremony. This year, PSS scaled it down and focused on the members who were representing their category. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis event was a lot smaller, and so it seemed a little simpler, but we were still able to honor and celebrate the \u2018of the years\u2019 for all the schools and the programs that represented the system to really honor those people and the hard work and service that they give to the community,\u201d said Staffler.<\/p>\n
Bonny Cruz, a fifth-grade teacher at Koblerville Elementary School who has been with the Public School System for over six years and was recently named the 2021 State Teacher of the Year, said she strongly advocates for mental health, especially for educators who tend to focus less on themselves and their needs and more on their students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe communicate and we interact with our students every day. A lot of us educators, we put others first. …I think that\u2019s actually a common thing in the CNMI, and being brought up in this culture, we\u2019re always taking care of other people on a daily basis, where our main focus is our students all day every day,\u201d said Cruz. She said that not only does she need to be reminded but everyone and her colleagues as well, that they need to take care of themselves so that they are able to perform \u201cat optimal performance for the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred B. Ada also strongly believes that mental health needs to be addressed, and that the ceremony is needed \u201cnow more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any organization, rewards and recognition are very important. A lot of people overlook it as if it\u2019s not important. …It\u2019s recognizing all the hard work, especially in this pandemic, in moving forward. It\u2019s a combination of teamwork at the school level and the district level,\u201d said Ada, adding that it\u2019s more important this year because of the pandemic, where many changes that took place in the last few months.<\/p>\n
Joshua Gomez Meneses, a teacher aide at Garapan Elementary School, received an award as Teacher Aide of the Year. \u201cReceiving this award is very worthwhile, as this is an opportunity for me and all the other educators to keep doing what we do best and to continue to educate and move forward,\u201d said Meneses. <\/p>\n
He said this was his first time to attend a teacher appreciation event, and appreciated that COVID-19 procedures were being followed through and that the event was kept on schedule and ended on time. <\/p>\n
Meneses, who has been with PSS for about three years now, said that one thing that he\u2019s learned in that time is how to be patient and to find alternative ways to solve problems (adaptation). \u201cAs an aspiring counselor, I believe these key characteristics are essential to keep because you must be able to help your students\/clients move toward positive changes. It is a time-consuming process, yes, but the journey and end results are very rewarding,\u201d said Meneses. <\/p>\n
With the support of his family and keeping a positive mindset, he expects better days ahead, despite the implementation of austerity days, payless paydays, and the ongoing pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Public School System celebrated November as Education Month last Monday with a small gathering…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":334022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-333991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333991","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}