by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - Senator Aline Yamashita knows the ins and outs of public education, previously serving as DOE's Deputy Superintendent. She decided to visit Untalan Middle School on Thursday to see for herself just how bad things were at the campus. She said, "We talked to about four or five teachers yesterday and they actually described what they go through everyday and I said to them, 'Listen, please understand that some experts have told us this school was safe.'

"Their response was, 'Well, I ask you to work here to come here everyday I ask you to come here and spend seven or eight hours a day with students, and then you tell me how safe you think it is.' For me, the frontline duty, the first line responders, these are the ones who know. What sealed it for me was the fact that DPHSS said they had 40 demerits. I know enough about those inspections that it's not who I know or what I care about its just they see and through their experience they rate what they believe is right."

Senator Yamashita says when she visited the campus she saw exposed wires, leaking ceilings, and could smell the scent of sewage. Like Speaker Judi Won pat, Senator Yamashita says the Legislature must now take a look at where the funding will come from.

"I'm thinking that the governor should have a plan has a plan in how this is all going to work out. I'm certain the senators are open to sitting down on how all this can work. And to reprioritizing the expenditures the budgets. I know that all 15 senators will be the first ones to say that our students are our top priority. We won't say that their safety and their health is too costly, because it's not."