CNMI Public School System\u2019s schools will be open for classes on Aug. 18, but whether these classes will be face-to-face, five days a week, or static cohorts will be determined by a school\u2019s ability to have 80% of its eligible population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred B. Ada last Friday.<\/p>\n
In line with this, Ada said that PSS hopes to announce soon whether a school will be fully open or will have to conduct static cohorts by Aug. 13.<\/p>\n
Static cohorts will be classrooms with students who will receive their education in-person, but all from one room during the school day to minimize the possibility of community spread. Students within these cohorts will not be allowed to participate in clubs or other extracurricular activities.<\/p>\n
As part of his report last Friday during the State Board of Education\u2019s virtual meeting, Ada said that 80% of teachers and staff at PSS\u2019 elementary school have already been vaccinated and will more than likely be fully open this new school year.<\/p>\n
As per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the eligible population for the COVID-19 vaccines are those who are 12 years old and above, which means elementary-aged students are not eligible yet for vaccinations, so PSS only counts elementary school teachers and staff for its vaccination rate at that level.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a different story for middle school and high school, whose students are already eligible to be vaccinated and are therefore considered in the equation. Ada acknowledged that there have been challenges in upping vaccination percentages among these schools\u2019 12-and-older student population. Currently, Ada said that teachers and staff across all secondary schools are almost at 80% vaccinated, but for students the average percentage of vaccinated is around 49%. Ada said Tinian Jr.\/Sr. High School reported that 80% of its student population is now fully vaccinated, making it possibly one of the first secondary schools to fully open this upcoming schoolyear.<\/p>\n
As for all remaining schools whose student populations have not yet reached 80%, Ada said that PSS has given itself the time window between now until Sep. 24\u2014roughly the midpoint of the first quarter of the school year\u2014to reach 80% across all secondary schools. If that goal is met by Sep. 24, all schools will transition from static cohorts to fully open, face-to-face classes. <\/p>\n
PSS launched the vaccination campaign \u201cVaccination for Education\u201d in June to encourage its eligible students to get vaccinated. Since then, the CNMI\u2019s public schools have served as vaccination outreach sites to better provide access to COVID-19 vaccines to PSS students. Kagman Elementary School will serve as a vaccination site today, from 8am to noon. <\/p>\n
With the first day of classes quickly nearing and the \u201cVaccination for Education\u201d campaign in full effect, Ada said last Friday that all that PSS leadership can do now is wait. \u201cSept. 24 is our gauge. It\u2019s a waiting game, but for the most part I\u2019m going to try to get everyone back,\u201d said Ada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNMI Public School System\u2019s schools will be open for classes on Aug. 18, but whether…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":349615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-349585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349585","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\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}