Leadership

There is new leadership on Capital Hill, at PSS. Rita A. Sablan, the new Commissioner is now at the helm and the hopes, expectations, and challenges she has inherited are great.
At a time when funding is low, needs are not low, and ideas as to how to reconcile the two disparate realities are not many; she is tasked with finding the requisite solution. “Hope,” as the ancients said, “springs eternal.” Hope that our students will commit to achieving what they are capable of achieving, hope that our highly qualified teaching corps will maximize our limited resources, and hope that our parents will continue to support our schools in this time of financial upheaval; these are the hopes our new commissioner will attempt to bring to fruition.

And what may we, parents and citizens, expect in the coming months? What exactly are the expectations that we may realistically entertain? The good news is “a lot”! The bad news is it “ain’t gonna be a piece o’ cake.” PSS strategic priorities absolutely revolve around the resolute determination to see our students succeed. Succeed at what? Succeed in creating a future for themselves that they can be proud of, whether they decide to enter the work force directly upon graduation or continue on to higher education.

The federal government, as related previously in this paper’s pages, has mandated very stringent benchmarks to measure success. By 2014 “all” of our students must be proficient or better in all core subject areas, i.e., Math, Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. Our public schools are indeed making great strides in achieving that goal.

And, yes, there are challenges still to be met and overcome. The Commissioner’s Office is putting together plans to address these challenges—and they are everybody’s challenges—and bringing together talented personnel to guarantee success. And just what are the most urgent challenges facing the district?

Of course it is no great mystery that funding is at dangerously low levels. It is a fact that funding levels today are markedly lower than was the case 10 years ago; conversely, our student population has risen dramatically since that bygone age. Clearly, this is a challenge singular in its magnitude.

The federal government, in spite of a fearfully crashing economy, is not relaxing its demands for student achievement, nor in this writer’s opinion should it. The mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act are still very much in place. Our Commissioner, far from wringing her hands, is hard at work to see to it that the district meets, and indeed even exceeds, the goals and objectives set for it.

There is a need for all of our community stakeholders to pull together and to maintain a state of readiness. Readiness to join in the effort to assist our young people, our teachers and administrators, and our Commissioner in fulfilling the promise of this new day. Determination is the key to success; it always has been, it always will be. PSS leadership is committed to the task.

As may seem appropriate, given that this is Super Bowl week, let me close with a quote from the first coach to lead a team to a Super Bowl win, Vince Lombardi: “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” The Commissioner and her staff and the teachers and students of the CNMI are so committed. [B][I](Stephen B. Smith)[/I][/B] [I]Stephen B. Smith is the Accreditation, Language Arts, and National Forensic League coordinator for the Public School System Central Office.[/I]