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DOE still needs a few more teachers says Vaitinasa

The start of the new school year for public schools saw a few more teachers handing in their resignations, while the Department of Education has received good news that they have been awarded two grants totaling more than $600,000 after applications were successfully submitted by the Parent/Teacher Associations (PTAs) of two schools.

 

Education director Vaitinasa Dr. Salu Hunkin-Finau shared the information at last Thursday’s news conference, the first official monthly news conference for the school year. She said DOE plans to hold news conferences on the first Thursday of every month to ensure that parents and the community are informed about upcoming events and challenges DOE is charged to address.

 

Additionally, the “intent is to extend transparency to our community on the development of our educational system and future investment in our children’s education,” DOE said in a brief statement.

 

In a letter to the news media announcing the first official monthly news conference, Vaitinasa says the aim of the forum is to foster the participation of, and dialogue with, the local media community and to offer the opportunity to learn upfront of current and future developments within DOE.

 

Speaking to reporters, Vaitinasa said the goal of the monthly news conference follows in line with the governor’s mission to keep “everything transparent” for the public.

 

First issue on the agenda, are two grant awards, which Vaitinasa says were recently awarded to DOE under the Commerce Department’s Community Development Block Grant (CGBC), and the applications were both submitted by representatives of PTAs.

 

“As you can see, when the school and PTA work together, we always come out on the winning side of the children,” Vaitinasa told reporters. She explained that the first grant totaling $357,520 is for a multi purpose trades building for Nu’uuli Vocational Technical High School and the project proposal was submitted by PTA member, Nelda Emory.

 

The second project proposal was submitted by PTA member Solomona Auelua for a school playground at Afono Elementary School, with the total grant award of $30,000.

 

Because these are new grants, DOE is working with the two schools on the timeline to move the projects forward, including the awarding of contractors.

 

Asked during the news conference as to the status of public school teachers now that the new school year is officially underway — and how many teachers have resigned — Vaitinasa acknowledged that teachers appear to wait until the start of the school year to resign and the reasons given are usually for retirement, or family matters.

 

The DOE director says she is thankful that the governor has allowed for “emergency hire” to recruit teachers and DOE continues to do so, when the positions become vacant. She says that DOE needs about five teachers in high school and six in elementary schools.

 

During a news conference early last month, before the start of the new school year, Vaitinasa told reporters that ASDOE was “good to go” with high school teaching positions fully staffed and pretty much all filled for elementary except for a few positions.

 

However, she cautioned at the time that it’s always at the start of the new school year that a high number of teachers hand in their resignations and she has no legal authority to stop those individuals from leaving. (See Samoa News edition Aug. 12 for details.)

 

DOE is also getting staff support with 22 volunteer teachers on island from the US based WorldTeach organization, a non profit group.

 

Samoa News should point out that local teachers are paid on a 12-month cycle, not a 9-month, which would be the length of a school year, and probably account for some teachers quitting during their “last” pay period, not their last day of instruction.