JEDDAH, 9 October — A general assembly of parents at the International Philippine School in Jeddah (IPSJ) has been called on Friday to seek answers to questions over the way the school is being run.
Foremost among the numerous questions being raised is why the members of Board of Trustees who were elected or appointed in early 2000 continue are still there when their term was supposed to have expired last year as provided by the school’s charter.
Parents also want to know why the school board cancelled a Parents General Assembly scheduled on July 25 "without providing reliable and valid reasons..."
"The purpose of this gathering is to reflect on the IPSJ’s current status and the future of this fledgling institution with the hand of overstaying Board of Trustees," said Fidel R. Hernandez, president of the Parent-Teachers Council (PTC), in a letter to parents.
Hernandez said the PTC had made a written request to Dr. Reinita M. Respicio, the principal of IPSJ, to allow the use of the school gymnasium for the assembly scheduled at 3 p.m. "The services that your administration will provide reciprocate our efforts of making the school a home for Filipinos eyeing to have a better, peaceful and productive community," said the PTC letter to Respicio.
The PTC said they were expecting representatives from the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh or the Consulate General in Jeddah, as well as the Saudi Ministry of Education to come and observe the assembly.
The Board of Trustees chaired by Efren Rodriguez took over the school management in March 2000 as the Philippine Embassy relinquished its control under a new policy approved by the Philippine and Saudi governments.
As noted then by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), an agency under the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Manila, the transformation of the embassy school into a community school was meant to give parents a say in the affairs of their own school.
Critics of the Rodriguez administration, however, say that the ideals they had in mind when they elected the members of the Board almost three years ago have yet to be realized.
A number of parents have said that while they appreciated the improvements carried out by the Rodriguez administration in the teaching staff and school facilities, they are afraid the members of the school Board have appointed themselves rulers for life.
In a previous letter to parents and to Arab News, Rodriguez explained that it was the education director general of the Makkah Region who extended the term of the school board. An official of the same office had also met PTC members last year to ask for a little more patience, saying they needed more time to conduct the scheduled election.