Chronic effects of class suspensions on students

The President must seriously look into the actions taken by local government units on: class suspensions during rainy days, on studying the number of holidays that interrupt students in school, on sudden “no school” announcements due to traffic, SONA, rallies, strikes, etc. Little do you know that there are long-term chronic effects and impacts on student’s academic and behavioral performance when students miss too many school days.

The recent pointless and unnecessary class suspensions have wasted school hours that have disturbed the learning of students in schools. Students have not only missed school days, but also missed lessons, skipped topics, lost focus, developed a lazy attitude toward school especially during rainy days making it difficult for them to get back on track.

If we want our Filipino youth to become our future leaders, we must be more sensitive to their developmental needs. We must make sure they grow in a good environment and not a confusing one. We are actually destroying them. Aside from the parents, the government has a big stake on the development of the young Filipinos. They better get their act together before we shatter the dreams and destroy the future of our youth.

Last week I wrote about the “rainy daze” and how it has affected our lives. It was a picture of chaos, confusion brought about by inaccurate weather announcements. Last Friday, it happened again. It rained continuously since Thursday night and as expected we all woke up to another horrendous day of traffic caused by flooded streets and highways. LGUs didn’t suspend classes but almost did. Fortunately, the rains stopped mid morning but out of nowhere Quezon City sent the children home due to heavy traffic conditions. But why send the students home when they were already in school? Why stop learning when students are safer inside their classrooms than being outside braving the rain, flooded streets and heavy traffic?

Anyway, I hope government will realize this and become more organized and efficient in coming up with better standards before announcing class suspensions especially during rainy days.

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I tried to study government’s take on class suspension so that I can make heads and tails out of it and here is what I found. On January 9, 2012, then President Benigno Aquino III enacted Executive Order No. 66 Series of 2012, the primary legal documentation for the cancellation of classes. The EO details the “rules on cancellation or suspension of classes and work in government offices due to typhoons, flooding, and other weather disturbances, and calamities.”

Section 1 states that there is automatic cancellation or suspension of classes in all public and private elementary, secondary and tertiary schools, as well as work in all government offices depending on the Signal number raised by PAGASA. The section also specifies that “PAGASA shall issue weather forecasts through various media outlets (radio and television), and the NDRRMC, not later than 10:00 PM of the previous day and 4:30 AM of the day of the intended cancellation of classes and work. In cases where there are classes and work in the morning and suspension of classes and work is only effective in the afternoon, PAGASA should issue the forecast not later than 11:00 AM of the said day.”

The provisions of the section are clear. However, we must also understand that it has one limitation. It relies on the Storm Signal System which only measures wind speed of existing tropical cyclones that are within the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR). It is also only based on hazards from strong winds that is one aspect of natural hazards from typhoons.

Section 2 - “Localized Cancellation or Suspension of Classes and Work in Government Offices” states that cancellations and suspensions are to be “implemented by local chief executives, as chairmen of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (LDRRMC) concerned, in coordination with PAGASA and the NDRRMC, specifically in flood-prone or high risk areas.” This clearly establishes the roles of Mayors in cities and municipalities as the primary decision-makers when it comes to the topic of class suspension and cancellation.

Section 3 – highlights the declaration of a State of Calamity as the primary basis for class cancellation and suspension due to other hazards like flood, landslides, earthquakes, and other hazards.

The Department of Education (DepEd) supplemented the Executive Order No. 66 through DepEd Order No. 43, Series of 2012 enacted on May 28, 2012. It details “Guidelines on the Implementation of Executive Order No. 66.” It emphasizes the coordination of school officials with local chief executives and to “observe the weather bulletins of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).”

An exception in the DepEd Order is the statement that, “A school head (SH) may only cancel or suspend classes in cases where urgent action is needed to prevent loss of life or bodily harm.” It also states the disclaimer that DepEd recognizes that “parents have the ultimate responsibility for determining whether their children should go to school, even if no order for cancellation/suspension of classes has been issued, if they feel that traveling to or from school will place their children at risks (DepEd, 2012).”

Now, where will the LGU officials get their information that will help them decide? Of course we all know that the primary official data sources of these local chief executives for their discretion in cancelling classes is the PAGASA and/or the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) through various forms of mass media like radio and television and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. All these serve as venues for the dissemination of the scientific information that the officials can access.

If you can still recall Tropical Storm Seniang in December 2014, the coverage of the advisories were provincial. Using Facebook, the names of the provinces were tagged using the hashtag system (e.g. #NegrosOccidental, #Leyte, #Biliran, #Samar). As you can see the coverage of these warnings may be too broad in terms of the decision-making of local chief executives at the municipal and city level.

And how true are the reports that news agencies like CNN Philippines, through their Twitter account (@cnnphilippines), continue to misinterpret the PAGASA Rainfall Advisory System. My colleague Ralph Reyes, formerly from Project Noah noted that a screenshot of a tweet from the account as late as 13 June 2018 at 11:02 am showed the rainfall amount was associated with storm surge hazards which are more related to the wind intensity of tropical storms, among other things (Lapidez et al., 2015), rather than rainfall. This error can possibly mislead the decision-making of local chief executives, especially because it discusses hazards which is covered by Section 3 of Executive Order No. 66 Series of 2012.

Like what I wrote before, the system may be too broad an approach in forecasting weather since it covers entire provinces in its warnings while decisions regarding class cancellation and suspension are made at the municipal and city level. Experts like “GMA’s resident meteorologist, Nathaniel Cruz said that the quick-changing nature of weather disturbances makes the warning system only useful for relatively short periods of time. He gave as an example Typhoon Ondoy in 2009 when within a span of less than six hours, the conditions in Metro Manila had shifted from yellow to red (Panela, 2012).”

So, what do we do now? If we follow the protocol in the cancellation of classes as stipulated in EO No. 66 and DepEd Order No. 43, given the limitations of the provisions, how will the LGUs be able to make a well-informed decision on whether to suspend classes or not? Abangan!