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Rota GCA principal: Maintaining student enrollment ‘a challenge’
Because of Rota’s weak economy, people have had to seek education and opportunity elsewhere, according to the island’s new Grace Christian Academy principal, Anne Acuna.
Acuna told Saipan Tribune that the result of the financial struggles families face is an enrollment of just 54 students in their Kindergarten, elementary, and middle school classes. That figure is lower than last year’s number.
“Things are not the same as they were 10 or 20 years ago,” she said.
The administration’s primary goal, she said, is to maintain the student enrollment.
Grace Christian Academy-Rota principal Anne Acuna, left, joins Grace Christian Academy-Saipan principal Beth Nunez, center, and Grace Christian Academy-Tinian principal Connie Chandler at a recent general council meeting on island. (Thomas Manglona Ii)
The school has already introduced a number of programs and after-school activities to entice residents to send their children to the school in Sinapalo village. In addition to this, the school strives to get more families involved in their child’s education and activities.
Acuna arrived on the southern island in 2013, but was recently appointed to be the principal of the school this school year.
With just nine months under her belt as principal and 10 years of work in a Christian Missionary Alliance Church and various youth ministries in the U.S. mainland, Acuna is running the school with just four teachers and a handful of volunteers. Acuna herself teaches 6th and 8th grade classes throughout the day.
The California native administrator said she came to the islands to fulfill her desire to serve as an educator.
“This is a great experience and I am here because I found that I need to do something like this and now I am fulfilling it.”
Despite the many struggles the school faces, Acuna said that Rota is “a very calm and peaceful place.”
“The people are very friendly. It is a different way of life. It is not as fast paced as the states and it is not as highly pressured as the states,” she added.
Acuna hopes to continue her ultimate mission of “planting the seed of the word of God in the students and their families” as she remains at the helm of the educational institution in the next two years.
