Thirty-one Local School Board members from new and old Synergeia sites in Sulu gathered to learn from each other in making their school boards more functional. The training on LSB Reinvention was held on November 9-10 in Zamboanga City with participants from Kalingalan Caluang, Panglima Tahil, Talipao and Parang, as well as from the original “Team Sulu” LGUs of Jolo, Siasi and Patikul.

The expanded “Team Sulu” was led by Jolo Mayor Hussin Amin and Kalingalan Kaluang Mayor Radzmie Halun. As a newcomer in Synergeia education program, Mayor Radz candidly expressed, “ako po ay naririto dahil sa pangarap ko na makatapos ng elementary ang lahat ng bata sa aming lugar para tumaas ang antas ng aming pamumuhay”. To make his dream come true, he has committed to make his LSB functional and be able to lead the community in working together to ensure children of school age in K.C. go to school.

Mayor Amin, for his part, said that when he joined Synergeia, he realized “ it helps when parents, barangays, schools and community support initiatives in education. Hindi pwedeng kanya-kanya, dapat sama-sama.”

Other participants shared their best practices in engaging parents and barangays. PTA President Delmar Asjali related a success story of strong parents’ support in one elementary school in Patikul by working together for a school fencing project. Sir Ben Usman, PTA President in Jolo, also told of how parents are able to work with barangays to impose discipline among children and youth. The value of working as a team is a tried and tested formula in Sulu.

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Our goal in going to Tawi-Tawi was “3 in one”. One: To train the Local School Board of the municipality of Simunul. The LSB reinvention training was held on November 24-25. Aside from the school board, 15 barangay chairmen and 22 school heads also joined the training. Mayor Bonjing Adburahman expressed how fortunate they were to be visited for the second time after 16 years by one of the best governors in the country, Governor Migs Dominguez. Participants learned from the experiences of Sarangani LSB in reinventing its school board, how working together for education is effective and how to raise resources for education. The secret formula of Sarangani is “3 in 1”. It means parents, teachers/principals and barangays working together to improve children’s learning performance. In his talk, Governor Migs encouraged parents and barangays to support education and work together for the children of Simunul. He challenged everyone to regain the glory that was once Simunul, the “jewel of Tawi-Tawi”, by being the best in education.

Two: To hold an education summit. The Simunul summit was held on November 26, attended by close to 100 stakeholders composed of parents, teachers, schools principals, DepEd, barangay and LGU officials, youth representatives and community leaders. Mayor Abdurahman talked about the state of education in the municipality and called on the community to work together in improving it. The community responded by identifying priority programs they will undertake: a reading program for slow and non-readers and a teachers training that is focused on strengthening commitment, refresher in English and Math and improving instructional skills. The goal of Simunul is to raise its NAT score from 63% to 80%. DepEd District Supervisor Nurhaisa Ratag, barangays and parents expressed their appreciation for the opportunity of having the first of this kind of community consultation on education.

Three: To mentor parents and train them into becoming better partners in education. The joint workshop for parent-leaders in Tawi-Tawi was conducted on November 27 at the Beach Side Resort in Bongao. Thirty-five parents from Bongao, 30 from Panglima Sugala and 20 Simunul participated by sharing their experiences and practices in parenting. For their culminating activity, the participants signed a commitment to become better parents by being more loving, caring, dutiful, understanding, responsible and involved in their child’s education. They prepared a work plan and schedule by municipality for mentoring other parents in schools by doing the same workshop. Mayor Abdurahman challenged and inspired the parents to work together to bring about change for the children of Tawi-Tawi. Everyone was teary-eyed but happy.

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