DOE identifying areas to streamline

by Krystal Paco

Guam - Unclassified Department of Education employees may be on the chopping block. According to Interim Superintendent Taling Taitano, Governor Eddie Calvo has made it clear with recent layoff notices that the government is in dire need of downsizing. Taitano says that already the Guam Education Board is making cuts, one of which was their decision to close F.Q. Sanchez Elementary School in Umatac.

However, more cuts need to be made in order to comply with the governor's mandate to streamline operations in each government agency. "The largest impact to the schools is of course is our personnel to the department it's between 80-90% of our budget. So it's hard not to talk about cuts without looking at personnel costs," Taitano said.

She adds that 200 of DOE's teachers are unclassified employees. "We don't have any plans to layoff, but with regard to our limited term and unclassified teachers we have about 200 of them we hire them as we need them so if we determine that by maximizing a class schedule we may not need x amount of teachers, right," she explained.

DOE is looking to consolidate its resources and cross levels at schools in order to keep from jeopardizing the quality of education. "What that means is that we try to move staff and teachers around to ensure that each school is covered appropriately based on their enrollment," Taitano concluded.

This means that classrooms will have no less than ten students and when possible, class sizes should be filled to max capacity. Lastly to cut costs, DOE expects that for the remainder of the fiscal year, the agency may see a freeze in hiring.