First day of classes for territory’s public schools postponed to Sept 7

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — It was re-confirmed during a Senate Education Committee hearing yesterday that the new school year 2021-2022 for the public education system has been pushed to next month with classrooms opening on Tuesday, Sept. 7th — the day after the Labor Day holiday.

 Acting Gov. Talauega Eleasalo V. Ale, who is the lieutenant governor, announced the delay during his remarks on Sunday for the opening of the new school year church service at the CCCAS Kanana Fou Church. The local Education Department also posted an update notice on its website and Facebook page regarding the new date for students returning to school.

 However, ASDOE said there is no changes for teachers and all 10-month employees and they were all to report yesterday, Aug. 16th, to their designated workplace. The new school year was initially set for Aug. 23rd.

 But testimonies during yesterday’s Senate committee hearing said that delay of the new school year is a result of unresolved issues with school facilities mainly cafeterias and bathrooms that needed repair/ upgrade, which were not up to par following inspections by the Health Department, which began in the latter part of June through the middle of last month.

 DoH acting director, Vesi Talalelei Fautanu said during the hearing that the majority of both ECE and elementary schools for ASDOE are faced with some issue or another. And that DoH will continue to work closely with ASDOE and its School Maintenance Division — which was transferred back to ASDOE from Public Works early this year — to resolved all problems with facilities before the new school year opens.

 Sen. Satele Lili’o, along with two other senators pointed out that this has happened before in the past, where the opening of the new school year was delayed following inspections of school facilities by DoH. He urged all those involved to resolve such issues in advance before making decisions on opening the new school year.

 Sen. Magalei Logovi’i suggested to Education director, Talauega Dr. Samasoni Asaeli — who was also at the hearing — to look at a previous program during the Togiola Administration where the US Interior Department provided funding to hire bathroom monitors, who ensured the cleanliness of all these facilities and if there were problems, reported them to the Maintenance Division.

 Magalei said that based on photos included in the DoH report of conditions of schools, many problems are with bathrooms. There was also a recommendation from some senators for ASDOE to focus attention on “preventive maintenance” to address problems before they get worse, because it appears that these maintenance issues are long standing problems.

 Talauega agreed with the “preventive maintenance” issue adding that the department already has a draft-plan in place for addressing all these issues for now and also going forward.