As the CNMI Board of Education\u2019s new chair, Gregory P. Borja hopes to see policies and procedures established that ensure student success and allow the CNMI Public School System to move forward.<\/p>\n
Becoming board chairman was unexpected, though. Borja said he was surprised to be nominated for and voted in as BOE chair but he is gratified to his colleagues for seeing him as fit for the role. <\/p>\n
Borja was elected the BOE\u2019s new chair during the board\u2019s first meeting of the year on Jan. 11. Borja\u2019s term as chair will end on the second Tuesday of January 2023. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was a little bit in awe and shock that I was nominated to be the chair. \u2026I\u2019m very thankful to my fellow board members, for giving their confidence [in] me to lead us moving forward this year. I know that this is a challenging time,\u201d he said in an interview last week.<\/p>\n
Borja also thanked outgoing chair Andrew L. Orsini for \u201chis dedication and guidance\u201d to the BOE for the past year. As a relatively new BOE member, Borja also thanked Orsini for giving him some guidance on how the BOE conducts itself. Borja was sworn in as a BOE member in January 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do want to thank Andrew Orsini, our former chairperson, for his dedication and guidance [in] leading us this past year. \u2026He\u2019s been very helpful [in] allowing me to gain knowledge through him in terms of how the system works, so I do thank him for that. And, again, I thank all the other members\u2026because we can\u2019t do it by ourselves. We have to work together. \u2026There are challenges, but I think we\u2019re going to move forward,\u201d said Borja.<\/p>\n
Orsini remains a member of the BOE.<\/p>\n
Points of focus for the BOE going into 2022, Borja said, includes \u201ckeeping kids in school,\u201d ensuring that those who are unable to attend in-person classes will have adequate remote learning resources, and working with CNMI Public School System leadership to establish policies and procedures to \u201callow students to reach their educational goals to be successful in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borja added that he has \u201cdeep concern\u201d for PSS students in Special Education programs and wants to ensure that they are receiving adequate services, but said that, currently, \u201cthe school system in my opinion has been doing very well at [that].\u201d<\/p>\n
Borja also said that he would like to see his BOE establish policies that allow PSS to move forward and let Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred B. Ada, his key management team, and PSS school principals lead the way in terms of operations, with the BOE providing support in decision-making.<\/p>\n
With the COVID-19 pandemic going on for nearly two years now, Borja also hopes to see semblances of a return to normalcy during his time as chairperson, including but not limited to holding in-person graduations for PSS\u2019 outgoing seniors. <\/p>\n
However, students\u2019 safety and success are priorities for Borja and the BOE, and as such will work with the appropriate health officials and PSS leadership \u201cin terms of how to best serve our students.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they decide that for the safety of the students that we have to do drive-through [graduations] again, my biggest concern, again, is the students and the students\u2019 success. \u2026Keeping that in mind, we will work with our health care [partners and] our Commissioner of Education in terms of how to best serve our students,\u201d said Borja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the CNMI Board of Education\u2019s new chair, Gregory P. Borja hopes to see policies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":360419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360418","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=360418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}