House passes bill to establish scholarship for special education, disability services

Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao (Ind-Saipan)’s bill to establish a scholarship for CNMI students pursuing studies that support special education and disability services in the NMI passed the House last Friday and now heads to the Senate.

House Bill 19-63, HD3, notes that the Public School System is left to recruit professionals from off-island due to the lack of specialty areas in the Commonwealth, and that these off-island hire often do not stay longer than one or two contract periods. “The Public School System’s constant reliance on off island hires is costly and burdensome to the Commonwealth and does not allow for a stable workforce of providers.”

The bill establishes a “Related Services Providers Scholarship” for student pursuing a master’s degree in counsel and behavioral therapy, speech and language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, audiology, special education, psychology, among others, in fully accredited master’s degree program.

The scholarship will be awarded to five students per year up to three years after the establishment of the program.

Each scholarship is set at a maximum of $20,000 per students.

Students must be a U.S. citizen and a CNMI resident for at least five consecutive years prior to enrollment in the master’s program; possess a bachelor’s degree from a U.S.-accredited institution; agree to return to the CNMI six months after graduation for “a period of three years for each year of scholarship assistance,” among several other requirements.

PSS will administer the scholarship and provide an annual report to the legislature and governor on the program.

An amount of $300,000 from the PSS annual budget starting fiscal year 2017 will be deposited to the scholarship account, set up by the Department of Finance, to implement the program, according to the bill.

The provisions of the bill will expire five years after its implementation.

“The enactment [of the bill] will result in minimal loss of revenue for” PSS, “but the investment made in education our workforce” will help PSS and ensure “our children with disabilities receive the best possible education in the CNMI will heavily outweigh the loss and will help support the Public School System to put students first,” the House committee on education said its in report on the bill.

Aside from Attao, the bill was also introduced by Reps. Roman Benavente (Ind-Saipan), George Camacho (R-Saipan), Lorenzo Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), Edwin Propst (Ind-Saipan), John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan), Vinson Sablan (Ind-Saipan), Ramon Tebuteb (Ind-Saipan), Edmund Villagomez (Ind-Saipan), and Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan).