Calvo continues school tours

by Nick Delgado

Guam - Governor Eddie Calvo continued his tour of the islands public schools today paying a visit to George Washington High and Untalan Middle School. GW high principal Begonia Flores brought several concerns to the attention of the island's chief executive including A/C units that constantly breakdown, the lack of upkeep with the nearly 50-year-old campus, and the problem with overcrowding.

"If we are going to have the same problem this year like all the time then its teachers having overcrowded classrooms, class sizes all the way up from 30 to 32," she said.

Flores says classrooms should only have at the most 28 students each. She also expressed concern about the overgrown grass.  Public law assigns grass cutting for schools to village mayors. Mangilao mayor Nito Blas says the ground maintenance contractor, Delta 2 has said the campus is too large for one contractor to handle.

"We can do contract if we do it into three phases, one contract can do the campus itself, one can do the open field, and the other vendor to do the athletic field," he said.

Both Flores and Blas admit the biggest challenge is the lack of funding available to maintain the Mangilao campus.