Education C.E.O. Has the Numbers on Reopening

Dian Maheia

Chief Executive Officer Dian Maheia told News Five earlier today that the Ministry of Education has approved fifty-five pre-primary, primary and secondary schools for reopening in the first phase.  With interest being generated among other schools, that list continues to grow as preparations get underway for phase two which begins May tenth.

Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education

“Between the course of Monday, April twelfth and Monday, April nineteenth we are going to be having all these fifty-five schools come back in.  It’s phasing in, little by little, they’re starting and from the accounts that we have heard, yesterday was a good day.  We are not anticipating, as we had explained before, students, we won’t have full sessions, eight to three every day, Monday to Friday for all students.  They are starting and the schools have different schedules, so some are staggering days, some are staggering morning and afternoon sessions but we are starting and that is the important thing, yes.  We are continuing now the monitoring and working with those groups who are part of the April twelfth group.  We are considering them our phase one and we have a second group now.  We actually had, so far we have had close to two hundred and twenty-five applications.  So those sixty-one now, they’re working… the six who didn’t qualify or they didn’t get approval right away, those were different reasons and they have just transferred to May tenth.  So we’re now looking at the remainder of the schools and to be honest, applications are still coming in for May tenth, so the district [education] centers are now conducting those verification visits.”

According to C.E.O. Maheia, contingency plans are in place at the school and district-wide levels in the event that there is a spike in COVID-19 cases.