by Krystal Paco

Guam - It's not just the students at Vicente Benavente Middle School learning a lesson or two, but Governor Eddie Calvo as Principal Dexter Fullo walked him through the hallways of the 46-year-old Dededo campus Tuesday morning. Governor Calvo observed the deteriorating facilities to include a condemned building, as well as applauded the school's successes.

"We've visited many schools since I've been governor but with this school in particular, it has issues," the governor said. "This is an area of high intensity and some of the major issues that are affecting our community its important that we have to be here to listen to hear and see what's going on here so I as a governor can work with the school system with the community and with our policy makers to try to improve the situation here."

Governor Calvo was most impressed by the school's surveillance equipment and hopes to use it as a model for schools district-wide. It was in December the Parent Teacher Organization purchased and installed $4,000 worth of web-based surveillance cameras throughout the main building that have helped cut the numbers of not only breakins, but cases of cutting class, bullying, and graffiti.

"After coming out of this meeting, and listening and seeing for ourselves the solutions that they have. There are some great ideas that have come out of this school and seeing how we can take advantage of those great ideas and spread it out to other schools as well. This has been a learning experience for myself," Calvo said.

Principal Fullo says his staff are model educators who refuse to let lack of funding come in the way of providing quality education. This includes the school's librarian who revamped the library using grants, military assistance, and personal fundraising efforts. He told KUAM News, "Funding is important but other than funding we need to look at ourselves, as a group, as a whole 020332 and say okay what can we do differently.

"And let's not just rely on the board and let's just not rely on the governor. Let's not rely on the legislature so much what can we do within the limits that we have as a school to make sure that we hit our mission."

The school is also showing improvements in academics as SAT-10 reading and language arts scores are at record high because teachers teach less content, but teach it well.