Focus on Education Demands on Education and Lack of Money

Part III

In addition to academics, we must also be concerned with the health and safety of our students. Because of the austerity and the struggle to keep teachers in the classroom, there will be an unacceptable level of deferred maintenance of PSS facilities. During the past several years the PSS has had minuscule sums of money to keep all its facilities in repair. As a result, many of the schools have become shoddy and dreary looking and in some cases hazardous sites.

Since two years ago when the PSS was granted a loan of $30,000,000 to build new schools and repair some of the more needed ones, toilets looked and smelled like medieval dungeons. Fire alarms didn’t work. Roofs leaked. Painting of buildings was rare. And several classrooms had to be replaced because they had become dangerous. Air conditioners remained broken and new ones never added. The list goes on.

Now that the facilities have been improved and new schools built, in a short matter of time they will return to looking shoddy and be dangerous again. At least $2,500,000 is needed annually to keep them in a presentable appearance and safe. To date the current budget for maintenance of 15 campuses is about $250,000! We will have thrown almost $30,000,000 away unless we maintain what we have built for our children.

On a personal note: before I became a Board of Education member, I also thought that the PSS wasted or misused much of its funds. But after spending several years on the inside, I have changed my viewpoint. Knowing and seeing the operation and the expectations demanded of the Public School System, it has become quite obvious that little if any money is being spent foolishly or wasted. The demands are wide and costly.

Since educational results are difficult to assess in a concrete manner as in manufacturing or sales, unfounded criticism flows easily and plentiful. The problem remains a complex one. The community expects new school facilities, higher quality education, lower pupil-teacher ratio, broader and more elective courses, technological training, better facilities and better care for disabled students, higher teachers’ salaries, and many other things that a good and progressive school system should provide its students.

The community and the Public School System is caught in a dilemma. The community is right in expecting the best for its children. While the PSS wishes to fulfill these expectations, it is handicapped by lack of necessary funds. Before anyone starts throwing brickbats, sit down with the BOE and the PSS, and discuss a solution to this situation. A few minutes of probing into facts will help. It is useless to point fingers.

As long as the Administration and the Legislature have chosen to hire more and more employees. And as long as they prefer to pay salaries to many of their employees who do not possess any special skills or degrees equivalent to teachers who must possess either a B.S. , M.A., and in several cases, P.H.D. degrees, there will never be enough money. As long as the same two organizations prefer not to practice true austere measures so as to make money available to education, but engage in lip-service, students will always be shortchanged.

When a community believes in its convictions, it will always find means to fulfill them. If the community demands better education from its Public School System, it had better examine its priorities. Either provide the necessary funds or adjust expectations to reality.The PSS is ready to serve the students. Is the community ready to allow the PSS to do so? Public education is expensive.

Strictly a personal view. Anthony Pellegrino writes every Monday and Tuesday. Mr. Pellegrino can be reached at tonypell@saipan.com