THE Department of Education (DepEd) 7 expects 567,000 students to go back to schools in Cebu on Monday, June 3, 2019.
It reminded teachers that formal classes should start on Day 1.
Cebu Provincial Schools Division Superintendent Rhea Mar Angtud said teachers should get on with their lessons right away instead of making sure their classrooms were clean and ready for the new school year, which was the practice in the past.
Angtud said parents should also force their children to report to class on the first day, instead of letting them attend in the second week of classes.
Schools are ready to accommodate transferees and late enrollees during the first week of classes, she said.
Angtud reminded that late enrollees do not apply to students from Grades 2 to 6 and from Grades 8 to 12 since they are pre-enrolled. All they have to do is look for their section so they’ll know which class they belong to, she said.
Angtud also reminded teachers and parents of the “no collection” policy. Violators must be reported to the DepEd office, she said.
The education department remains resolved in its goal to provide learners with free basic education in both elementary and secondary public schools.
DepEd 7 Director Juliet Jeruta earlier said that despite the classroom backlogs in the region, students would be accommodated.
Jeruta hoped that the unfinished classrooms would be completed soon.
To address the problem, some schools have deployed double shifting of classes while others have raised the number of students in classrooms, said Isaiah Wagas, DepEd Cebu Province education program supervisor.
The double shift strategy means two batches of students will use one classroom. The first shift will start at 6 a.m. and end at noon. The next shift starts at 1 p.m. and ends at 6 p.m., Wagas said.
However, he said this strategy only applies to schools that are highly affected by the backlogs like the Tayud National High School and the Tayud Elementary School in Consolacion.
Wagas said these setups are temporary, or until the additional classrooms are completed.
Some 1,177 schools in Cebu will formally open classes today, according to Angtud.
She pointed out that the student population in the province increased two percent this school year.
In Cebu City, Schools Division Superintendent Bianito Dagatan also reminded parents that classes will start on Day 1, so their children should report to school.
Lessons will be taught unlike in the past when students helped out with the cleaning of classrooms and school premises in the first few days of school. The Brigada Eskwela program has already addressed that, Dagatan said. So parents have no excuse to let their children miss the first few days of classes, he added.
“Hopefully, the students we expect will show up for the first day of classes and not later in the week,” he told Superbalita Cebu in Cebuano.
Based on the automatic enrollment data, 178,000 students in public schools in the 80 barangays of Cebu City are expected to show up on Monday. The number is more likely to go up to 182,000 because of the increase in population, Dagatan said.
Like his counterpart in the province, Dagatan also reminded the 6,000 teachers in the city of the “no collection” policy.
However, he is aware of voluntary contributions for school programs like the Anti-TB, boys and girls scouts, the Red Cross, school publication and the Parents-Teachers Association that amount to P200 for each child for the whole year.
Dagatan said teachers should wait until July to collect.
A teacher who forcibly collects from students will be charged, he said.
“The division would like to inform them that if it receives a formal report, the incident will be investigation by our legal office. The teacher can end up facing an administrative case in violation of the office rule that has been implemented by the Office of the Secretary of DepEd,” he said in Cebuano.
He said public schools receive funding from DepEd for their Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses to cover school operations the entire year. (SunStar foto / Amper Campaña)