HJHS teachers: It’s all a lie’

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

Several Hopwood Junior High School teachers, including some support staff, are crying foul over recent reports of teacher complaints against school principal Jim Brewer and vice principal Beth Nepaial, saying the people behind the complaints do not represent them.

This arose after the Public School System received a signed petition alleging of “mistreatment and belittling” of teachers and staff, supposedly by Brewer and Nepaial.

School counselor Nariany Sikyang reportedly led the signature drive.

“The counselor did not have the majority’s approval on that petition,” said the teachers, who agreed to speak yesterday on condition of anonymity.

The teachers said that the signature drive only gathered 26 signatures and not all of them were of teachers.

Hopwood has a total of 82 employees, over 50 of which are teachers; the rest are administrative and support staff.

“So it’s not the majority,” the teachers said.

The Saipan Tribune tried to obtain comments from Sikyang but she was unavailable as of press time. Brewer and Nepaial have refused to comment on the allegations on the advice of the PSS legal counsel.

The teachers said that Sikyang asked for their signatures during instruction hours, when they were preoccupied with teaching or other matters. They alleged that she even asked for a maintenance employee who barely reads and write to sign the petition, not explaining what he was signing and for what purpose.

“Three teachers already complained that Sikyang asked them to sign the petition while holding on to other papers. When these teachers read the letter, they wanted to erase their signatures, but Sikyang refused to have their names removed. The three teachers felt that they were tricked,” one of the teachers said.

These teachers insist that Brewer and Nepaial do not harass nor belittle teachers at Hopwood. “If they are mistreating or discriminating against ethnicity, they would not have hired Asian instructors,” said one of the foreign teachers.

A local teacher said that majority of the teachers did not buy Sikyang’s story.

On the issue of the Hopwood principal issuing memoranda, they said that these are basically warnings or sanction letters intended to discipline some teachers and staff who mostly have problems with punctuality.

As for Sikyang’s allegation that she was made to sit on a corner during a meeting, the teachers attested that she was the one who chose to sit on the corner as there were two to three vacant seats available during that meeting.

She was also taken from the leadership committee due to professional reasons, according to them.

“All false. It was all a lie!” said one teacher. “The other paper should have verified facts first before they wrote that,” she added.

She alleged that the students and parents are being used and that Sikyang should have consulted the school administration first before going to the media.

“We have our own code of ethics as teachers in the school,” another teacher said.

The teachers described Brewer as “an honorable man.”

“He is humble and generous and keep a low profile,” said the teachers.

PSS associate commissioner David M. Borja also vouched for Brewer, saying he is a most qualified man and not the type who would belittle any staff due to ethnic origin.

The teachers said that they agreed to the interview to let the public know that “majority of the teachers believe that their greatest concern are the children, and that Hopwood remains one of the best schools, if not the best junior high schools in the CNMI.”