Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Education in the Territory is essentially funded through federal grants, according to the 2024 State of the Territorial Comprehensive Report. The report lists the administration’s accomplishments in this area via programs and initiatives launched through the American Samoa Department of Education (ASDOE), the American Samoa Community College (ASCC) and the Feleti Barstow Library (FBL).

The scholarship program would be the exception to grant funding, being a locally funded program that in School Year 2022- 23 awarded 65 scholarships — 30 off-island and 35 to ASCC.

In all, the ASDOE for FY 2023, which encompasses SY 2022- 23 and SY 2023- 24, employed 2,000 personnel in its various Divisions and offices, and it provided support and services to more than 10,000 students, ages 3 to 18 years of age “in the 22 Head Start/ Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers, 23 elementary schools and 6 high schools.”

The report lists 26 of the ASDOE accomplishments and includes not only new programs and initiatives launched, but also upgrades to its equipment and infrastructure, such as the ongoing Library renovations through access to e-books available for students and teachers; purchase and arrival of 15 new school buses- eight gasoline engines and seven diesel engine-total fleet of 22 buses; and, campus-wide internet access at all schools.

There are three accomplishments that are reported as successful empowerment events — the Close Up Summit, the Samoa Bowl 2023 and the Marching Band Initiative.

It also reported that the ASDOE “plans to align with the Territory's workforce needs as identified by the ASG Department of Commerce, and offer new career pathways in these areas.”  The Jobs Corp, Hospitality Training, and Coastal Management Training are part of these plans.

The ASCC section of the report highlights not only its achievements in areas of study, administration and infrastructure, but also “its engagement with the community” focusing “on the unique aspects of American Samoa’s people and culture.”

Here are several interesting highlights ASCC showcased:

First ASCC Professor Emeritus — In January 2023, the President’s Office announced that, for the first time in its history, ASCC would confer the status of Professor Emeritus on a retired faculty member who, while in active service to ASCC, had displayed exemplary service as an instructor, researcher, and/or administrator. The first person in the ASCC family to earn this distinction is Mr. Larry Hirata, who for many years served as an educator and department leader with ACNR.

ASCC establishes Staff Senate — During the earlier part of 2023, ASCC officially established its Staff Senate. The newly-formed Staff Senate is the result of concerned staff members coming together to ensure the staff has representation in areas that affect them within the institution and with the long-term goal of fostering unity and teamwork.

Amerika Samoa Language Academy — The staff of the Samoan Studies Institute (SSI) finalized its work on developing the Amerika Samoa Language Academy, a three-year project funded by the Administration for Native Americans. For this project, the SSI is collaborating with local non-profit organization Intersections, Inc. The goal of the project is to create a certification process for local teachers in Samoan language and culture. Among its first-year activities for this project, the SSI staff has put together materials for Academy-related courses. While these course materials have been collected to create readers for the Academy courses, the same readers will also be used for regular SSI courses. During FY 2023, the first group of teachers from American Samoa’s public schools enrolled in the Academy and received their certificates.

Guitar Building Project — The Teacher Education Department (TED) began its second STEAM Guitar Building Project/ Technician Education Readiness Pathway (TERP) session on July 3rd. The purpose of TERP was to have teachers use STEAM project-based activities to pique the interest of students to excel academically, and also to teach students to apply academic skills to life skills. The summer Guitar Building session hosted 12 high school students, and three students who participated in the first Guitar Building Project in 2022 returned as Student Aides, who assisted teachers while helping guide students in the building of their guitars.

For the Feleti Barstow Public Library, the report centers on its mission “to serve as a center for lifelong learning dedicated to meeting the informational, technological, and cultural literacy needs of all age groups by providing both current and historical reading and instructional materials in a variety of formats.”

Programs for 2023 included Children’s Literacy Programming which did outreach to the daycares, ECE centers and schools and highlighted “community collaborations with the American Samoa Department of Education and several non-profit organizations” and its Polynesian Photo Archives work — preserving and storing cultural and historical images for public access; a bookmobile was purchases. The Summer Reading Program also continued to be a success with its unprecedented participants — with over 4,000 children served, and it plans to broaden the support for this program for 2024.

The FBL circulation statistics for FY 2023 are as follows:

Total Users/Visits 18,531; Library Card Patrons 16,246; New Library Cards FY23 402; Books in Collection 44,892; Books Loaned 4,338; Children’s Programs 333; Children’s Program Attendance 4,009; Homework Club Attendance 4,886; Reference Questions/Inquiries 163; Computer Lab Use 2,464; and, Wi-Fi Access 305.

Samoa News will continue to report on the TCR 2024 in its upcoming issues focusing on the Territory’s current state of affairs and what the Administration considers progress.