Budget issues crimp TES hiring of teachers

The Tanapag Elementary School has not been able to hire teachers needed for students with special needs because of budget issues, according to TES principal Frances Ulloa.

She said that one of the issues raised by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which recently visited the school, is for TES to address the need to provide for special-needs students.

“It’s not necessarily instructional support. What they [WASC visitors] saw here is that with the regular services that we provide, students with special needs are not able to meet their full potential.”

“Since the PSS [Public School System] has opened up more schools, the budget has not been enough [to hire teachers for this purpose],” Ulloa said.

She explained that most of the cost of personnel comes from the local budget, and because there had not been enough, teachers for students with special needs had not been fulfilled.

The WASC team had also recommended more work done on the TES assessment.

“I was very excited about data assessment this year. But since I had to cover the students this October, it was put aside,” Ulloa said.

Ulloa has been playing a dual role: as an administrator and a teacher since one of the TES teachers had resigned and no one else was available.

She said there has been ongoing communication between herself and the teachers on the assessment; however the WASC team recommended they strengthen it.

“They see that in accreditation; it’s happening already. We just need to strengthen it. We need to maximize our resources and our capacity in terms of assessment and data,” Ulloa said.

Another recommendation raised by the WASC team is the need for TES to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act by 2009 by means of having non-Highly Qualified Teachers meet certification or Praxis status.

The school’s non-HQTs are being asked to submit an action plan indicating what their plans are in order to meet the 2009 deadline.

Ulloa is registering her non-HQTs via online registration and the teachers will be mailed back with a schedule or availability of the Praxis test.

Ulloa said that if the school plans to continue receiving federal money, it would have to comply with the requirements.

“We’re very hopeful that teachers meet the certification or whatever is required of the NCLB. If we don’t fulfill it, the district would have explain or give justification what the reason is and maybe they can grant us another year,” Ulloa said.

She explained that federal allocation has been helping the school tremendously and that the school has almost become dependent on it in order to maintain operations.

WASC chairwoman Linda Kewin had said that she was impressed with the school’s creative ways of maximizing its limited resources.

“We’re just trying the best we can to do that,” Ulloa said.