The Public School System\u2019s administration is attempting to work with the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force to come up with a plan for a more traditional graduation with limitations for the upcoming Class of 2021.<\/p>\n
Board of Education chair Andrew Orsini said that many graduating students have expressed a desire to have a traditional graduation\u2014an in-person graduation\u2014with some limitations that fit into the COVID-19 guidelines.<\/p>\n
Orsini said the conversation whether to have an in-person graduation or not was brought up in a previous board meeting, with students and parents wanting a \u201cmore formal graduation ceremony\u201d for the students. He said if BOE and PSS will accommodate that, then Rota and Tinian will also be having an in-person graduation.<\/p>\n
Orsini said last year\u2019s graduating class had no choice but to have a virtual graduation. With the upcoming graduates, the PSS administration is looking into working with the task force to see how an in-person graduation can happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should look at the students\u2019 wants, and these students worked hard to get to where they\u2019re at and [this is their] last school year. I think it\u2019s important for them because you don\u2019t graduate from high school all the time, you graduate once. \u2026.If things ease up by May, hopefully something will come up and develop,\u201d said Orsini.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how the graduation will happen, Orsini said that the BOE and PSS will try to make it \u201cbetter\u201d for the high school graduating classes.<\/p>\n
As for students returning to full face-to-face classes, Orsini said they are looking forward to transitioning before the fall, which is in early August. As for now, they are focusing more on those who are graduating. <\/p>\n
Last year, both PSS and the Northern Marianas College transitioned to virtual graduations, followed by a drive-thru diploma distribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Public School System\u2019s administration is attempting to work with the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":343037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343031","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=343031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}