Some 13 schools in Iloilo City have been validated for the progressive expansion of limited face-to-face classes for being close to 100 percent compliant with the School Safety Assessment Tool (SSAT) of the Department of Education (DepEd).

The SSAT with four main areas namely managing school operations, teaching and learning, well-being and protection, and home-school coordination is a tool to assess the readiness of schools for the face-to-face learning modality.

Iloilo City Schools Division superintendent Dr. Ma. Luz de los Reyes said eight public schools and five private schools have been validated.

“So far eight (public) schools were validated and found to be 97 percent compliant,” de los Reyes said, adding that the remaining three percent were mostly on their signages, warning signs, comfort rooms, handwashing facilities, and classrooms.

She said they can already start with their limited face-to-face classes once they have the local government unit’s concurrence and approval from the regional director of DepEd.

Five private schools were also validated with SSAT compliance rate ranging from 90 to 99 percent.

De los Reyes added that there are a lot of schools interested to open but could not do it immediately because they have to comply with the requisites and secure the approval of the regional director.

Iloilo City has 139 private schools and 66 public schools.

The school could not open if there is an existing case of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in their barangay.

They also need to secure clearance from the local government unit and the Department of Health (DOH).

“No matter how supportive the mayor is, if the assessment showed that they are not ready, they will just get disqualified,” she said.

With the case of other schools, she said they agreed to prepare to implement the limited face-to-face classes next school year.

Once the schools open it would still be blended learning or a combination of limited face-to-face classes, modular and online learning.

It would also be the original 50 percent of the class per meeting.

De los Reyes said for now they are in the preparation and validating stage.

Technical assistance teams, including the Regional Incident Management Team (RIMT) led by the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD), have been doing rounds in various schools to look into their preparation.Perla Lena/PNA