Bohol town schools put photos of students in chairs as face-to-face classes yet to start

Photos of students wearing uniforms are placed in empty classrooms at the Camambugan National High School in Ubay town, Bohol province. | Leo Udtohan/Inquirer Visayas)

TAGBILARAN CITY––In-person classes may not have started yet, but in a school in Ubay town in Bohol, it seems that classes have resumed.

There are, however, no actual students there.

Instead, classrooms in the Camambugan National High School (CNHS) have photos of students wearing uniforms.

Dr. Wilfreda Flor, the division Filipino coordinator, instructed schools under her supervision to put photos of the students in their desks to enliven the classrooms.

CNHS has 1,124 students this school year, but the population has decreased since a school in the town proper opened.

It has 44 teachers and three non-teaching staff. Teachers work from home and alternately report to school twice a week.

Grade 7 teacher Marilou Petalcorin entered her class empty. But when she placed photos of her students last October, she felt energetic.

Teachers asked the parents or students to send their photos on their Facebook group chat. There were, however, times when teachers went to the house of their students who did not have cell phones.

Petalcorin printed the photos of her students in high resolution, cut, and pasted them on a used illustration board, and placed them individually in their chairs. It has the name and learner reference number (LRN) number of the students.

A container is placed on the chair for the module. Every time parents come to claim their children’s module, all they have to do is look for the photos of the student.

“We are going to put pictures in the chair of the students for us to get to know them because last year, we were unable to know them until the end of the year. So, the purpose is still to make the classroom conducive for learning and getting to know the children,” she said.

Petalcorin said the strategy is effective since she had memorized the names of her 28 students.

“It is effective. Since the instruction is to place the chairs facing the window or door, what happens is we recognize the faces of our students and their names and their LRN,” she said.

The Department of Education (DepEd) said nearly 100 schools in the country were allowed to conduct in-person classes on Nov. 15.

In Tagbilaran, parents opposed the conduct of limited in-person classes in public schools.

In a resolution, the Tagbilaran City Schools Division School Year 2020-2021 Federated Parents-Teachers Association (FPTA) presidents said there were still COVID-19 cases in the city.

“Based on what is known about COVID-19 and the effectiveness of physical distancing and other health and safety protocols implemented to prevent the transmission of the virus, there are continuing challenges to health and the economy, and saving lives should be everyone’s top priority,” it said.

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