by Krystal Paco

Guam - The Oceanview Knights can look forward to using a new and improved gym by next year. And the Department of Education has more plans to improve school facilities islandwide.

Condemned in 2001, renovations to the Oceanview Middle School gymnasium are finally starting. According to principal Linda Hernandez-Avilla, physical education teachers and students have had to improvise classes using the field when weather permitted or moving lessons to classrooms, hallways, or the cafeteria. "This is a momentous occasion," she said. "This is a long-awaited event that took too long - it took 10 years for the gym to be repaired and a long journey that came to closure."

According to DOE facilities and maintenance manager Billy Cruz, the project will cost $836,000 in bond money but problems with procurement delayed the renovation all these years. "It's a relief we've gone through protests and protests and finally we came to a contract where we don't need to protest and we move forward with the project," she said.

Julisis Nucum of winning contractor Z4 is excited to take part in such a long-awaited renovation, saying, "This project is very close to our hearts…because we proved ourselves that we're competitive in this business and we can help the community. Also, we advocate education."

Tuesday's OMS gym groundbreaking marks the start of many more projects to improve DOE facilities islandwide. Interim superintendent Taling Taitano said, "We have opened the infrastructure and roofing repair bids this week and hope to have construction start around the Christmas break today the IFB for electrical upgrades and fire alarms went out and we hope that we'll be getting a good response to that."

The Agat gym's ribbon cutting is scheduled for March 2012.