Announce class suspension earlier, DepEd asks LGUs

Following the confusion over the suspension of classes due to heavy rain Monday, the Department of Education appealed to local governments Tuesday to make such announcements earlier.

 

The DepEd particularly urged local governments to make announcements before 5 a.m., when many students would have left for school, radio dzBB's Glen Juego reported.

 

In some cases, the dzBB report said students in public schools attend flag ceremonies as early as 6 a.m.

 

Also, the DepEd cited the risk of students who may spend the day playing hooky once they arrive at school and find classes had been suspended.

 

On Monday, many local government units and school administrators suspended classes due to the risk of floods from heavy rain since Sunday night.

 

But many of the local governments and schools made their announcements after dawn.

 

When the new school year started this month, the DepEd and Commission on Higher Education had stressed they will not be the ones to announce the suspension of classes due to bad weather.

 

Instead, they said the job will fall on the local government units and school officials concerned. 

 

Malacañang noted on Monday the new standard operating procedure for suspending classes due to bad weather needs some improvement.

 

“If there were some complaints by parents as to the lateness of the information, that’s something that we need to analyze and discuss amongst ourselves… What’s the better way of improving the system,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said at a press briefing.

 

Some students were confused by the new system of class suspension, and voiced their sentiments on Twitter on Monday. –KG, GMA News