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Saint Mary’s School of Sagada, Inc.
Sagada, 2619 Mountain Province
PRESS RELEASE
09 January 2004
SMS: A School of Choice
by
Bernice A. See
Saint Mary’s School [SMS] of Sagada, incorporated in September 17, 2003,
is now moving towards transforming itself as a school of choice for students
and parents. This comes at a time that the Saint Mary the Virgin Parish is
celebrating its centennial this 2004. SMS traces its roots to the coming of
the Rev. John Staunton, an Episcopal missionary, who came to establish an
industrial mission in Sagada. Aside from establishing the SMV Mission, he
also tutored the first students, planting the seed of Christian education
which eventually metamorphosed into the current Saint Mary’s School.
It will be recalled that on December 14, 2003, SMS hosted Dr. Josette Biyo,
the first Asian honoree of the international Intel Science Teaching Award in
2002. This was an introduction to the school which was offering her an
opportunity to serve the Cordillera indigenous youth.
This effort has not gone to naught as the Chair of the Board, Engr. Rufino
Bomasang, got the commitment of Dr. Biyo to bring her team of trainors to
SMS this summer. Her team are her co-teachers at the Philippine Science
High School – Western Visayas Campus. This team regularly conducts training
in the Visayas-Mindanao areas. The Sagada Centennial Workshop is mainly to
train teachers of SMS in science research education and teaching
strategies with the theme “SMS in Pursuit of Excellence, Commitment to
Excellence,” referring to both students and teachers.
Selected elementary
teachers from the SMS feeder schools around Sagada will also be included in
cooperation with the Sagada local government. The training will be conducted
on April 12 – 14, 2004 at the SMS quadrangle, a very rich laboratory for
science teaching. Dr. Biyo’s team shall be composed of 10 trainors for 25
participants. Extensive hands-on will be required of the participants,
which includes student.
Aside from preparing teachers, school facilities are being upgraded. The
school will be wired as soon as arrangements will have been made to hook up
to a private internet access. This will enable the faculty and students to
get up-to-date and broad-range information for their lessons. New computers
have been acquired to increase the student-computer ratio.
In order to maximize the use of its extensive library collection, the
school is scouting for a librarian who is willing to be a partner of the
school in developing quality education through an active library service
serving not only the school but the education sector in Mountain Province.
Networking with various institutions, such as Mapua Institute of Technology,
Brent International School – Manila and others, is being pursued
vigorously by the Board. Ambassador Yuchengo, owner of Mapua, helped build
the present school building when it was gutted in 1974. In 2001, Mapua
donated a bulk of laboratory equipment to the school. SMS has been a
recipient of education materials from Brent International School – Manila.
These efforts are meant to generate the necessary support to invigorate the
school as a learning institution, strong in science and technology with a
deep Christian orientation. The Board envisions students to graduate from
SMS competently prepared to take on post-secondary education.
In order to make quality education affordable to financially-challenged
students but deserve to be in Saint Mary’s School, work is being pursued in
creating a Scholarship Fund to sponsor academic scholars.
To make the learning environment conducive to developing the potential of
individual students, classes will be limited to only 30 students starting
with the first year students of SY 2004-2005. This is intended to allow
maximum interaction between teacher and learner. Also, entrance
requirements will be imposed in order to give the parents and students the
quality education that they deserve for the school fees they pay.
Teachers are expected to be able to meet the new demands of the new
management – individuals who live by the Christian spirit of nurture,
commitment to service and at the same time possess pedagogical competence.
They must be updated on the latest trends in the learning-teaching process.
In order to come up with this crop of teachers, the screening of
applicants to teaching positions will be done through a more extensive
process.
To sustain the work that has been started, each Board member will chair a
committee responsible for a key component of the school system. Initial
committees to be formed are Education, Finance, Community Relations and
Development committees. The Board, with the alumni association, are all
putting their own time to make a difference in the school , a school of
choice.
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