Most public schools in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas have begun a new academic year today, despite continued power outages.
Public schools had already delayed opening for a month after concerns over the reliability of power services, and the Governor had called on the Board of Education to delay the start for another two weeks.
A Public Schools System Commissioner, Rita Sablan says most schools have opened without difficulty, but two she visited today have been affected by power cuts, and several others were not able to open at all.
She says the Department of Environmental Quality has found the water to these schools is not safe.
"I believe they did some tests and the water quality didn't come back fairly well for students to be at school today. And I think it had to do with the power, you know the fluctuation of the power outages."
Rita Sablan says authorities are dealing with the situation.
Meanwhile water pumps have been installed at all schools to provide water to flush toilets, and generators are in place to overcome the power outages.
