Returning to school this year poses new challenges for schools, including implementing mitigation, addressing social, emotional, and mental health needs of students, tackling potential learning loss, and preparing for the probability of COVID-19 cases within the broader school community. As communities struggle to take care of their vulnerable children and youth, decisionmakers are having to devise new mechanisms for delivering essential services from food to education to health care.
As the world health crisis deepened, the opening of classes was moved twice. With the Philippine government’s decision to again postpone the opening of public schools to October 5 reflects the doubts it is encountering in addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Nagrangtayan-Magacan Elementary School however, headed by School Principal Elma D. Sacbibit together with the ever-dynamic faculty and staff managed to provide alternative pathways to deliver quality education for its pupils, with the Department of Education’s assistance despite airing concerns that the digital divide will lead to further exclusion.
With the help of Local Government Unit of Sanchez Mira in collaboration with a strong Barangay support system leverages the most effective partnerships, helping not just learners but educators grow and develop a broad range of competencies and skills in and out of school. With an ongoing research on harnessing innovation to leapfrog education toward a more reasonable and appropriate learning environment for all, the goal is for all school children to become lifelong learners and develop the full breadth of skills and competencies from literacy to problem-solving to collaboration that they will need to access a changing world of work and be constructive citizens in society.
Today we are facing a very different context, the Nagrangtayan-Magacan Elementary School, despite the surge of cases brought by the virus remains unshakeable and invincible to providing the best education for all with all resources ready to be distributed. Instead of raising a white flag from a dominant force, the faculty and staff view it as an opportunity to learn more, reshaping the educational landscape in a more competitive environment. The crisis has revealed the enormous potential for innovation that is dormant in many education systems, viewing it as an eye-opener, for the virus did not just create the school’s distress that are under discussion today, but COVID-19 has made it more crucial to resolve these worries before they further undermine the Philippine education.
As all schools around the world dabbled with hardly any forewarning to pivot to some form of remote learning, citizens around the globe who depend on educational institutions as stepping stones around which they planned their daily calendar faced the shock of life without these centers of learning. The entire faculty together with supporting groups composing the Nagrangtayan-Magacan Elementary School however remained steadfast and unfazed amidst all the challenges that came along, making it indeed a force to be reckoned with, upholding its mission of achieving triumph over trials.