Officials target to reopen Sapangdaku Elementary School this June

Cebu City Councilor Joy Augustus Young meets with Cebu City DepEd officials to discuss the reopening of Sapangdaku Elementary School. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)

Cebu City officials will reopen the Sapangdaku Elementary School, which was closed three years ago due to flooding woes.

In a press conference on Tuesday morning, Councilor Joy Augustus Young announced the reopening of the school after consultations with parents and officials of the Department of Education (Deped).

“We have to make an intelligent decision here as to the risk. Old people there said there weren’t really major incidents of flooding in the area,” he said.

Young said they target to reopen the school by the opening of public school classes on June 5.
He said city engineers are already on the process of repairing and clearing the old school, which has eight classrooms.

Based on their initial agreement, only the 240 students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 levels will use the classrooms in the old school.

The remaining students in the kindergarten, Grades 1, 2 and 3 levels will continue to have their classes in the barangay hall while the rest of the classrooms are being repaired.

The school, which is located beside the Sapangdaku River, was ordered closed by former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama in June 2014 due to “frequent flooding” in the area.

Since then classes of the more then 500 kindergarten and elementary students have been held at the Sapangdaku barangay hall.

Young, who is the deputy mayor on education, said the plan to reopen the school was brought about after he suggested that the students should just be transferred to the Guadalupe Elementary School considering the unfavorable conditions in the makeshift classrooms.

He said he asked the Deped and the school officials to conduct a consultation with the parents regarding the plan.

It was during the consultation that they found out that the parents wanted to use the old school again.

“One hundred percent of the parents really want to go back to the old school,” said Sapangdaku Elementary School Principal Babylin Palban.

She said aside from the poor conditions of the makeshift classrooms in the barangay hall, the parents are also concerned of the additional transportation cost if they transfer to Guadalupe.