The Chuuk Board of Education (CBOE) has terminated Gardenia Aisek Macayaon as the Executive Director of the Chuuk Department of Education (CDOE) and appointed the Deputy Director Noah Ruben as Acting Director. In a letter dated December 9, 2014, Mr. Johannes Berdon, Chairman of the CBOE, ended the tumultuous years of Mrs. Macayaon as head of all educational reform efforts in the State and gave her 24 hours to vacate her office in Nantaku.
“…the Chuuk Board of Education by majority vote has terminated your employment with the Chuuk Department of Education.” The letter further instructed Macayaon to, “refrain from signing any document or taking any action on behalf of the Chuuk Department of Education from this date and forward…(and to)… vacate the Director’s Office of all your personal belongings and surrender all government property to the Chief of Administration and Personnel for proper accountability, by December 10, 2014.”
Ironically, the Board of Education which holds the highest duty and responsibility to provide oversight has been challenging the Director’s leadership of the reform efforts. The members who are all political appointees of the Governor include Johannes Berdon (Northern Namoneas), Cindy Mori (Southern Namoneas), Iromy Bruton (Public Schools), Yosta Lodge (Private Schools), Kind Kanto (Expert Field in Education), Abraham Rayphand (Mortocks), Antasio Biseck (Faichuk), Samuel Bisalen (Northwest).
The BOE’s action couldn’t come at the worst possible time for the children of Chuuk who stand to suffer yet again. The Board appears to be obstructing educational reform and openly challenging the US Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) which had just concluded a high-level meeting in Chuuk two weeks earlier with the Governor, Board of Education, senior DOE administrators, Chuuk State Legislatures to address key issues in educational reform.
Whether the US sees the Board’s action as good or bad for educational reform is yet to be seen. At risk is the 2nd quarter Compact funding which was scheduled to be released on December 30th by a JEMCO Resolution 2014-5.
Whether the US will actually withhold this fund this time is yet to be seen as they have made similar threats to withhold Compact funding for Chuuk eduction. What’s clear is that without the Compact funding, all public schools in the entire State of Chuuk may not re-open in January as there will be no money to pay for people’s salaries.
If all public education in Chuuk closes down because of the Compact funding, we can be sure that there will be plenty of finger pointing between the Governor of Chuuk, the Chuuk Legislatures, Chuuk Board of Eduction, Department of Education, Office of Insular Affairs, the Advisory Group, principals, teachers, etc. Lost in all of these political one-upmanship and screaming for pay will be once again the children of Chuuk.
Not again!
What was this termination all about? Was it about abused of power, bribery, dishonest or fraudulent conduct by the DOE Director? I hope the DOE Board does not abuse their power either, to exercise too much authority over whom they pleased to work with and fired those who did not serve the BOARD own interests.
However, I would be in agreement with this termination if the Board shared with the entire chuuk public, especially the parents the reasonable cause of getting rid of the current DOE Director. Don’t you think this is a public information and the public deserved to know what’s going on.
May we please know the reason(s) behind this termination.?
What is going on in Chuuk?
We are loosing trust in our politicians and now the DOE..!