10 Feb 2012

CNMI school teachers change schedules due to school hour cuts

12:02 pm on 10 February 2012

The Principal of GT Camacho Elementary School in the Northern Marianas says losing an hour of class time each day means teachers will have to change their schedules.

All public elementary schools in the CNMI have been told by the Commissioner of Education to dismiss students about 45 minutes earlier each day in order to reduce power costs.

Charlotte Camacho says her school is having to shorten class time by one hour a day and teachers will have to alternate science, social studies and physical education classes.

"We have to be creative in perhaps working with the schedule and having teachers maybe teaching a whole week's unit on a content and then the following week teach a whole another content, for example, one week all science content, the following week all social studies content."

Charlotte Camacho says in addition there are now two different lunch times for upper grade and lower grade students.