TACLOBAN CITY – Extreme heat that being experienced by this city for a couple of weeks now has forced several schools to stop temporarily the face-to-face method of teaching as they shifted to modular learning of system.
Among these schools are the San Jose Central School, Sto. Sped Center, and Panalaron Central School.
At the Manlurip Elementary School (MES), said that it was agreed by both parents and teachers to shift to modular learning system due to the current heat wave being experienced by the city.
“So far, there’s still no incident of students or teachers needing medical attention due to extreme heat, and as a precautionary measure we already anticipated possible incidents so we immediately made a request for the approval of our action plan,” school principal Edever Zanoria said.
Zanoria said that based on the consensus of teachers and parents blended learning will last until the end of the current school term, unless the weather condition will improve.
Unlike in other schools, MES classrooms are smaller. They even have two classrooms that we divided into two to accommodate for sections.
The school has a total of 16 classrooms for 420 students from kindergarten to Grade 6. Each section has students from 30 to 40.
Helen Noynay, whose son is currently in Grade 1 in the said school, said that although she prefers having her son study inside a classroom, she supports the current set-up to protect the health of her child.
“Because of the heat, his always coughing and I always made sure to bring extra clothes for him,” she said.
Rosemarie Roa, a Grade 2 teacher, said that her students sometimes have difficulty focusing on their class due to the heat.
“They easily get distracted and would complain of the temperature. It became a challenge for us teachers because students have usually a short attention span. This extreme heat does not only affects the learners but even us teachers,” she added.
Roa added that she hopes that the plan to revert back to the old school calendar, from June to March will soon be approved.
This is supported by her fellow teacher Jaggy Tapales, who teaches Grades 4 to 6 explaining that there are times that he cannot tolerate the temperature which causes him to experience headaches and eye pains.
“We have a clinic in our school where we can provide first aid to them and if not we can endorse them to the nearest health center or hospital,” Tapales said.
DepEd-8 information officer Jasmin Calzita said that principals and school heads are reminded of their authority and responsibility to suspend in-person classes and switch to alternative learning modalities due to extreme heat especially if this endangers the health of the students.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
