The sense of ownership of educational reform for the Northwest region was evident throughout the week in all the discussions. This spirit of community ownership of reform began a year ago when CDOE gathered the Northwest educators and leaders at Northwest High School (then, Weipat) to challenge them to take full ownership of educational reform in the region as part of the Chuuk Education Reform Plan (CERP). That challenge by Deputy Director Noha Ruben was met with enthusiasm by the Northwest leadership and educators and they proceeded to plan the first NEST to be held at Xavier High School.

NEST was truly a regional effort from planning, funding, to implementation. All the Northwest Unified Schools principals agreed to pool their school-based budgets on training to fund the NEST, agreed to a regional academic calendar to ensure that all schools end in time for the NEST, and all participants traveled on their own time and money to Weno to participate in the NEST. Even our newly elected political leaders in the Chuuk State Legislatures (Senators Matt Kuor and Atan Hetiback and Representatives Andrew May and Celes Kaliga) followed suit and united to participate in all the NEST sessions and then proceeded to host a huge closing dinner celebrations on the last day to honor the NEST participants.

All in all the NEST was a successful start of unifying educators, municipal, church and traditional leaders, parents, elected officials, the Northwest citizens overseas, and funders like Fanapi Foundation, Matsen Foundation, CDOE, and the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA)…to support educational reform in the region and the State of Chuuk. The nest and the traditional mat were used throughout the week to symbolize this weaving together of many community strands to form a supportive environment of growth for the children of the Northwest region.

During a leadership summit between the educators and the Northwest leaders (mayors, chiefs, senators, representatives), the NEST trainers (Fr. Arthur Leger, SJ, Ph.D., Margarita Cholymay, Ph.D, Paulina Yourupi, M.A., and Vidalino Raatior, M.A.) who have been asked to serve as the Northwest Consulting Team (see #9) summed up the week’s worth of discussions into the following 10 strands which were ratified as the 10 priorities for the Northwest Unified Schools.

1) LOCAL CULTURES: There is real energy for the local traditional cultures to be integrated into the Northwest Unified Schools student learning.

2) CODE OF ETHICS: There is general acceptance that there is to be a common code of ethics for Northwest Unified Schools for the principals, teachers, community, and the students. This code of ethics will be expressed in our pledge.

3) MISSION & VISION: There is real hope that a common mission and vision might be developed for the Northwest Unified Schools.

4) SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN: That the Northwest Unified Schools’ principals and teachers know how to develop and implement the School Improvement Plan. This will be closely linked to our Academic Calendar for the Northwest Unified Schools.

5) STRATEGIC PLAN: That a Northwest Unified Schools Strategic Plan to be developed for curriculum awareness and implementation especially school-based lesson planning.

6) ANALYZING ASSESSMENT: That principals and teachers seek further assistance in developing, administering a Northwest Unified Schools standardized test and analyzing the JHET and NST.

7) LOCAL LEADERSHIP: That a local leadership team to be formed in the Northwest Unified Schools to assist in the coordination and implementation of a Northwest Unified Schools Strategic Plan, particularly the Code of Ethics, the integration of culture life skill into the curriculum, and the understating of alignment of the curriculum to instruction and assessment.

8) NEST REPORT: That the Northwest Consulting Team creates a report on NEST, based on the attainment of the objectives, which will be disseminated to stakeholders including Office of Insular Affairs, the CDOE, leaders and funders.

9) NORTHWEST CONSULTANTS: That there is still much work to do and the Northwest consultants are willing to help as long as the Northwest Unified Schools educators and leadership requests for our assistance in areas that may not be provided by CDOE.

10) COMMITMENT: That we can continue to keep this energy and commitment to improvement of student learning in the Northwest, only if the leaders and the those involved in education work together for the sake of the students.

For a video highlights of the NEST, you may visit the Fanapi Center channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/fanapicenter

Today marked the first graduation for the newly renamed Northwest High School, formerly Weipat, located on Onoun Island in the Northwest region of Chuuk State, FSM.  To celebrate the event, a chartered flight arrived from Weno carrying a delegation from the State Government and the Department of Education. On board were the Governor of Chuuk State the Honorable  Johnson Elimo, Senators Matt Kuor and Adan Hetiback, Representative Celes Kaliga, and the keynote speaker Paulina Yourupi from the Chuuk State Department of Education. Thanks to everyone who made our graduation celebrations a success.

• Graduation Program
• List of the Graduating Class of 2013

The Northwest Educators Conference (NEST) 2013 aims to bring together all the public school teachers and principals from all the elementary, junior, and high schools in the Northwest regions of Namonweito, Pafeng, and Pattiw which make up the Northwest Unified Schools (www.northwestunifiedschools.org). While residing on campus for the duration of the conference, the educators will engage in a series of workshops, discussions, lectures, and classroom simulation exercises led by trained educators in the field of school administration (Vidalino Raatior, M.A., from the University of Hawaii at Hilo) and leadership development (Fr. Arthur Leger, S.J., Ph.D from the Ateneo de Manila University).

One goal of the conference is to provide an integrated hands-on leadership development program specific to the needs in these public schools. Another is to build community and synergy among these educators so they may become effective leaders in the overall Chuuk State School System educational reform plans.

Funding is needed to pay for the conference venue rental, room & board for participants, support staff, supplies, boat charter fees, transportation expenses for the conference facilitators.

For ways to get involved, please visit: www.fanapi.org/get-involved/

Last August St. Paul’s Christian School contacted The Cuthbert Project about taking the library from Trinity Christian School, in Yigo, for use in the Federated States of Micronesia where The Cuthbert Project focuses its educational efforts. With the help of Hagens Inc. the books, over a 3 day period, were loaded, moved to Hagens warehouse and palletized for shipment. Fr. Floren, the principal of WeiPat High school on Onoun provided the dimensions of the space to be dedicated to the library and shelves were designed, cut and prepared for future assembly on Onoun. ( It was estimated that it would require 1400 lineal feet of shelf space ) The space also needed new windows, doors, lights and ceiling fans which were shipped with the books.

Matson graciously agreed to provide a 20 foot container and to ship the entire library to Weno at no charge. Hagens did the packing, Kwik Space on Guam did the trucking and Triple B Freight shipped an additional 5 pallets of books, which could not fit into the container, to Weno.

The container and additional books arrived in Weno the middle of January. The container was placed on the dock and a motor vessel was moored next to it so the 20+ volunteers could manually transfer books, shelves, lumber, windows, lights and tools into the holds of the 90 foot vessel. Shrink wrapped and palletized books were carried on the open deck. The complete transfer was accomplished in about 6 hours. The shipment also contained equipment for the clearing of Onoun’s runway which had become overgrown.

After a 30+ hour trip to Onoun the 90 foot vessel arrived at Onoun about 6 PM on Friday, January 25 and off loading began early the next day. The first items to be off loaded were the shelves and construction materials and assembly immediately began on the shelving units. T.R. Mori and his cousin G.R., from Weno, took charge of the shelf assembly and quickly gathered a group of willing helpers so that as the first books started to arrive they were immediately placed in shelving units. In the 48 hours, between Saturday morning and the following Monday morning all shelving units were assembled and all books had been off loaded, hauled up from the beach and placed in the shelving units.

The motor vessel anchored about a quarter of a mile off shore so the books had to be removed from the holds, placed in small boats and taken to the shore where the school students carried them the 200 yards to the new library. Based on the volume of books involved the students probably made over 2,000 trips from the beach to the library over the 2 day period.

While the shelves were being assembled Kin Dela Cruz of Hagens Inc. gathered a willing crew of volunteers and began installing new window frames, jalousies and louvers to properly secure the library space. He also supervised a local electrician in the installation of the ceiling lights and fans.

A year ago The Cuthbert Project installed a 30 station computer lab at the same school which is powered by a large photovoltaic array installed by the European Union in 2009.

Students eating from a basket of donated food from the Onoun community. Photo courtesy Floren Akkin.

Northwest High School located about 120 miles from the Chuuk lagoon has officially run out of food for the 255 boarding students from the small remotest islands of Pafeng, Pattiw, and Namonweito.  Classes are canceled indefinitely until the food problem is resolved.

Northwest High School, formerly Weipat Junior High School, is the only public school for the three outer island regions. It has seen a dramatic increase of enrollment after the Chuuk State Department of Education turned it into a 4-year high school without additional resources.

The food shortage was inevitable from the start of the school year as the shipment from the Department of Education which oversees all public schools in Chuuk was well below the needed amount. For several weeks leading up to this week, the principal Fr. Floren Akkin, has sent urgent emails and radio transmissions to the Department of Education office warning them of the impending food shortage.

Poor planning and lack of funding have been cited for the problem. The food shipment came down from Weno without the usual biscuits and canned fruits to supplement breakfast. The cooks had no choice, but to feed students rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This unhealthy menu of white rice for all meals has sped up the food shortage.

“DOE Central Office knows very much of our problem,” said Father Akkin, the Catholic diocesan priest and principal of Northwest High School.

“They knew very well that our enrollment has increased yet they have not increased the amount and variety of food for our students,” pleaded Father Akkin.

This week the school completely ran out of food for the students who have had to travel hundreds of miles over the open Pacific ocean to live in poor living conditions in leaky dormitories.

Fr. Akkin has turned to the people of Onoun to help share their own meager resources with the students, but added that “the people do not have enough resources themselves to feed the students.”

Classes at Northwest High School are canceled until the food situation is resolved. Parents and leaders from the Northwest have been alerted. The problem is that the parents of the students are themselves scattered throughout the region hundreds of miles away separated by ocean.

“This is a matter of life and death,” wrote Fr. Floren, adding, “How can we expect to teach students when  students’ lives are at stake?”

A non-governmental organization called Fanapi Center (www.fanapi.org) is currently being created by the Northwest leadership to help support educational efforts in these outer islands in the Northwest. Until the NGO is fully chartered and operational, please contact Fr. Floren Akkin (floakkin@gmail.com) if you wish to offer help.

• Click here to read the article, “School in Chuuk is running out of  food” by Loquela Losinio from The Marianas Variety.
• Click here to read the article, “Remote Pacific School Runs Out of Food” on Australia Network News