SDA School’s new principal plans to build more classrooms

Principal Randy Yates of the Saipan Seventh Day Adventist School poses beside the signage of the school premises yesterday at the Saipan Seventh Day Adventist School Campus. (Erwin Encinares)

Randy Yates, the new principal of Saipan Seventh Day Adventist School, wants to upgrade the school premises in order to provide a better learning experience for the students of the Christian school.

Yates agrees that in order to further provide a worthy learning experience for each and every student of the school, the school would have to accommodate more students due to the large waiting list of the Child Development Center Program.

“We had a planning meeting with our board last Tuesday and we have already been given approval to build four more classrooms unto our school and also to build a gym,” said Yates in an interview yesterday with Saipan Tribune at the Saipan SDA school premises. “We have a large wait list, especially in the child development Center Program.”

The waiting list of SDA is large enough to fit into three of the additional four classrooms. “If I had more classrooms, I could already open three more classes,” said Yates.

The SDA School has also acquired permission from the CNMI government for the building of these additional amenities. “We already have gotten an approval by the Commonwealth to build the four classrooms. Hopefully we’ll get that started pretty soon,” said Yates.

Yates’ main goal is to give back to the society by means of education. “We want to fulfill the need of the community,” said Yates. “We are a community school, so we want to reach out to the community and to work with them, to see some of the challenges that they have, and see how we could help them. We are here on Saipan to teach our children, our students, about the love of God and about Jesus, and to help them become better Christians.”

The SDA is also accepting international students, as included in their academic curriculum is the English Language Learners program, which allows students with little to no knowledge of the language improve over time through tutoring and full exposure to the language.

Yates is currently taking up his doctorate degree in Special Education at Texas Women’s University.

Yates has a Masters Degree in Education and also has Masters level work in Communications. Having taught all levels from pre-kindergarten all the way up to university-level students and between, Yates has professional experience spanning over 30 years including experience in administration, educational radio, and television management.