Dear CNMI Board of Education

Educators are organizing. We are creating a network to share concerns and work toward social action if and when necessary, to ensure we are doing everything within our power to do right by our students. We are committed to sharing with the rest of our beautiful island community the deplorable conditions facing our schools and our kids.

We find that once educated on the issues, parents and community members are usually appalled by the situation and feel as passionate as we are about doing what is right by our students and educators.

Among our chief concerns are:

1) The central government owes PSS a lot of money, and no legal action is being taken to guarantee it gets paid, even though students and teachers are suffering greatly because of it.

2) We need policies to ensure adequate funding for PSS. The government’s financial crisis this year hit PSS the hardest—and there is nothing preventing it from happening again in the future. We need you to specifically work with legislators and the administration to make laws and identify stable revenue sources to support and protect public education.

We are afraid you would rather “wait and see” to avoid burning political bridges, even though we keep sharing with you the harm being done to the students in our care, and to the teachers, administrators, and staff of the school system you represent.

We do not view you, the board, as the “enemy.” In fact, we hope to fight for you, as we know you will garner even more power and perhaps willingness to act if you see the sheer numbers of support you would have. I implore you, if you are not already willing to use the power available to you to fight for the money due and for policies to ensure stable, adequate, and sustainable funding for PSS in the future, please become willing. I believe the unfolding of actions and the growth of our network over the next two weeks will convince you that this is what the majority seeks.

We know that if nothing is done, the outcome will be more cuts and loss of personnel. This means less highly effective educators, less quality programs for students, and less safe campuses for students and educators alike. We beg you; stop cutting and stop the damage here and now.

Finally, allow me to address all the big-hearted educators in the CNMI, public or private, teacher or counselor, bus driver or central office employee, administrator or maintenance staff: Please join CNMI-ED as a network of people with firsthand knowledge of what we would really need to put students first in the CNMI. We have no union, association, or group formed to voice our perspectives. We have this network, which has already reached over 100 contacts by only word of mouth in a single week. Let’s make it 500 by tomorrow. Scan the QR code or follow the link at the bottom of this article.

In solidarity and with kind regards,

Alex Olympio Borja
CNMI-Ed Representative
#iStandWithEducation

Join here: http://bit.do/CNMIED
Reach out to us here: cnmieducators@gmail.com