PSS to review commissioner’s job description

While the CNMI education commissioner post is vacant, the Public School System finds it the perfect moment to review the position’s job description.

This is with the goal of ensuring that there will be no quick turnover for the position in the future, according to Board of Education chair Marylou Ada.

“Currently, associate commissioner (for Administrative Services) Glen Muña is acting COE until we sit and review the publication of job vacancy announcement duties and responsibilities because this kind of thing is what we really want to avoid.”

“We want to employ continuity and stability in PSS and this [is] created when there is consistency in policies and procedures. If every year we have to change that, it will create a lot of confusion on what is coming down the pipelines,” she added.

Former education commissioner Cynthia Deleon Guerrero was let go nearly two weeks ago, just days before marking her first year of getting hired for the job.

“We have to review, evaluate, and look at the past so we can avoid making the same mistakes and work on for the future. For the commissioner position, we don’t have a fixed list of candidates,” Ada said.

“There’s nobody on our list that we are definitely going to hire. It’s going to be announced. We have no notion or idea as to who we want to hire. We are going to evaluate the list and we will go from there,” Ada added.

As required by law, the tenure of the education commissioner is four years. It is an “at will” employment, which means whoever gets hired can be cut terminated from the position by the board any time.

Deleon Guerrero served one year into her contract as commissioner and will no longer serve the remainder of her contract.

“A new contract will be given to the incoming commissioner so there will be no ‘taking over’ to Deleon Guerrero’s unserved years. The contract between PSS and Cynthia Deleon Guerrero has ended so we are moving on to another chapter,” Ada said.

Once the board publishes the job vacancy announcement for the commissioner post, everyone is welcome to apply.

“There are a number of qualifications required but the most important is you have to have experience running a school at a supervisory level or at least have an experience being a teacher.”

“It is important that the applicant understands the needs of the school because you are going to be taking over an organization with 2,000 employees. That’s why one has to have supervisory skills and this will play into your role as COE. We also require a masters degree or Ph.D. in education,” she added.

Ada hopes the board hires a new COE before the year ends.

“As it is, we are moving forward. We are pushing forward in trying to bring highly qualified teachers, to be on target with our graduations, all testing requirements and other things we need to do for 2018.”

“We are very positive looking at 2018 and it will be a very good year for the PSS,” she added.