BAGUIO CITY – The Division of City Schools of the Department of Education underscored that public and private schools in the city should await the issuance of an official division memorandum before scheduling Saturday classes for their students in lieu of the school days when classes were suspended due to bad weather conditions.
City Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Federico Martin disclosed there is still sufficient number of buffer days in the current schoolyear to offset the number of days that classes in both private and public schools in the city were suspended due to inclement weather.
He said that appropriate instructions through a division memorandum will be issued to the different private and public schools in the city once the existing buffer days will be exhausted so that the affected students will have to hold make-up classes on Saturdays.
For the current schoolyear, the education official claimed there are still less than 10 buffer days left to offset the number of days when classes suspended thus students in both private and public schools will not yet undergo make-up classes as mandated by existing laws, rules and regulations.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed that the weather condition in the city will start improving so that there will be no declaration of suspension of classes in both private and public schools in the city that might affect the momentum of the students in the learning process,” Martin stressed.
Based on existing policies of the education department, there are over 200 school days in a school calendar where students are mandated to attend at least 180 school days for them to complete the schoolyear while part of the school days have been reserved by the agency as buffer days to offset the number of days when classes are suspended because of declared official holidays and suspension of classes due to the prevalence of bad weather condition, especially in various parts of the country where bad weather prevails during some parts of the schoolyear.
According to him, the conduct of make-up classes on Saturdays should be sanctioned by the education department, thus, administrators of private and public schools should wait for pronouncements from the education department on the said matter to avoid unnecessary confusion among students and parents.
Martin revealed that more than 10 buffer days have already been used up for the first two months of classes due to regular and special holidays and the declaration from local chief executives on the suspension of classes in certain levels during the prolonged monsoon rains last month but there are still sufficient buffer days that could offset other special and regular holidays among other instances when classes will be suspended in the coming months.
He appealed to parents and students to understand the decisions that will be handed down by the agency once the buffer days will be exhausted as what is important is for the learning process not to be unduly interrupted by unexpected declaration of suspension of classes.
By Dexter A. See
Photo by Armando M. Bolislis
