Bauko, Mountain Province – The Cordillera office of the Department of Education formally charged the school principal of the Otucan-Bila National High School for simple neglect of duty due to her alleged failure to correct the practice of school teachers and personnel in collecting Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) and other contributions from students which is in violation of Republic Act 5546 and Department Order No. 54, series of 2009.
In a 4-page resolution with formal charge signed by DEpEd-CAR regional director May B. Eclar, it stated that such acts of Otucan-Bila National High School principal Jenifer A. Lapinas, if true, constitute the administrative offense of simple neglect of duty, thus the school official was given 72 hours from receipt of the same to submit her answer under oath and additional evidence if any.
Eclar ordered the embattled school principal to state in her answer whether she elects to have a formal investigation of the charges against her or whether she will waive her right to a formal investigation and that her failure to submit an answer will be considered a waiver on her party aside from the fact that any motion to dismiss, request for clarification or bill of particulars shall not be entertained by the office.
The DepEd-CAR official advised the principal that she is entitled to the assistance of a counsel of her choice.
The case against Lapinas stemmed from a letter compliant of Salvador Liked against Lapinas for requiring students to contribute for a slope protection project; requiring senior high school students to contribute for the library; requiring parents to pay P550 for a toga donation for the school; requiring students to subscribe to a yearbook costing P330 per coy and requiring students to buy tickets to watch the presentation of a theatre group.
However, Lapinas denied all the allegations hurled against her and averred that there was no mandatory collection in their school as the school is implementing the no collection policy of the education department.
She claimed that the slope protection project was the initiative of the parents knowing the limited budget or lack of funds of the education department and it was the parents that initiated to raise funds through various means such as contributions and solicitations and that the contributions were voluntary and that the school was never involved in the collection of contributions and solicitations.
With regards the put up of the senior high school library, she claimed that the same was initially discussed by the parents during their homeroom PTA meeting and was again repeated during the senior high school meeting and that she was not present or involved in the said meeting.
According to her, the slope protection and senior high school library projects were not mandatory but instead voluntary through the initiative of the parents who want to help the school considering the limited funds for such projects.
Lapinas explained that it was against the parents who agreed among themselves that the toga will be done by them and subsequently donate it to the school as one of their projects considering that the toga will be worn by the graduating students only once and the same is true with the yearbook where the parents were the ones who discussed the matter among themselves and it was agreed that it was not compulsory.
The school principal disclosed that she was not involved in the selling of tickets by the students to watch the presentation of a theatre group and that the play was through the initiative of the theatre group and the tickets that were distributed to be sold were not mandatory.
Eclar pointed out that unfortunately, the statements of parents and some of those interviewed cannot confirm whether the contributions were mandatory because the parents who attended the PTA meetings were willing to contribute and some parents who did not attend the meeting were willing to pay the contributions.
She emphasized the parents who questioned the contributions but still paid the said contributions did not raise their objections directly to the PTA and claimed that they were afraid to do so because of the alleged interference of the school principal.
Eclar argued that what is revealed is that some of the PTA project contributions were collected directly from the students by school personnel but no one wants to identify who made the collection from the students and who were the students who paid directly to the school personnel.
The DepEd recognizes the fact that PTAs are allowed to collect voluntary financial contributions from its members to fund its programs provided that it is supported by a PTA board resolution confirmed by the school head with supporting minutes of the meeting of the general assembly.
While the department lauds the enthusiasm of the parents to help the school through their projects, Eclar noted that the collection of contributions must be within the bounds of the law, rules and policies.
By HENT
