All the 39 public schools in this city are now ready to welcome back their students in the progressive expansion of in-person classes.
Schools Division Superintendent Vilma D. Eda of the Department of Education (DepEd) based in Laoag City said Wednesday they just received the approval letter from the DepEd Regional Office dated March 18 for the sixth and final batch of public school applicants for the implementation of face-to-face learning modality.
“All our schools are prepared and they have fully complied with the standards of the School Safety Assessment Tool (SSAT),” said Eda in an interview.
As of the moment, there are 5,096 learners, 393 teachers, and 76 non-teaching personnel who are engaged in progressive in-person classes. These numbers represent about 22 percent, 42 percent, and 30 percent of the learners, teachers, and non-teaching staff of Laoag’s public schools, respectively.
Before a school is allowed to start in-person classes, the DepEd requires participating schools to be validated by school authorities if they have complied with SSAT standards.
Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit Academy of Laoag, one of the 26 private schools here, has already started its limited in-person classes, while the 25 other private schools are in the process of securing the required documents for approval.
To date, the province of Ilocos Norte has remained under Alert Level 1 with six new recorded cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 from April 16 to 18, 2022.
Last February, the DepEd recommended to President Rodrigo Duterte a progressive expansion of limited face-to-face classes to allow only vaccinated teaching and non-teaching staff to participate. (PNA)
