by Krystal Paco

Guam - It may be the start of a much needed makeover to the Department of Education, as the Educational Learning Task Force, led by Governor Eddie Calvo's education liaison Vince Leon Guerrero and co-chaired by DOE interim superintendent Taling Taitano, held its first meeting today.

This 18-member "dream team" is faced with the unfortunate realities of DOE schools and will focus on the need to return Untalan Middle School to its Barrigada campus by 2013, renovate and rebuild existing public schools, build new schools for the long-term needs of DOE, fill these schools with collateral equipment, open public school campuses to the community during non-school hours, provide the best transportation for students, implement reforms to enhance teaching and learning, and recommend changes to laws or policies.

Untalan Middle School principal Jim Reyes says although he dreams of having his school rebuilt from the ground up and pushed back away from the busy highway, the reality is that a facilities capital action plan that surveyed all the island's schools recommends that the Barrigada campus only be renovated. "If I could give a wish list per se, verses what really needs to happen of course a full demolition and the reason for that is that the current facility in its state, we have minimal wiggle room," he said.

Sodexo Services Guam, Inc. senior project manager Tracy Higuera says the Untalan renovations will cost $3.2 million, but expects the price could go up, depending on findings from a structural engineer. "Upon our visual inspection it does seem that the permanent structure is structurally sound and something that you can renovate," she said.

According to Guam Economic Development Authority's administrator Karl Pangelinan, GEDA is working at creative financing vehicles that don't count towards the island's debt ceiling in order to fund these upcoming projects. "In the situation analysis as of today, we all know what GovGuam finances are and that we're already at capacity in terms of our debt limit and in terms of borrowing new money to build new schools," he explained. "So with that said, the governor's desire to number one is to pay for all the unpaid tax refunds. So with that, we're looking at maxing out debt capacity. We need to think way outside the box in terms of how do we finance and how do we refurbish, rebuild or rehabilitate existing schools."

The options include federal tax credits, which give developers access to capital that GEDA purchases, mixed use financing which allows the school to operate in the day but as something else in the evening hours to provide additional revenue, and energy efficiency financing because DOE is the second largest consumer of power on island.

"The cost savings that you realize from retrofitting a lot of this hardware will be used toward the debt surface, and after 10 years, that's when you start seeing return on your investments," Pangelinan said.

Governor Calvo's director of communications, Troy Torres, says the governor is making doe his top priority as none of these strategies have been applied to any other agency. "The priority that GEDA is putting on DOE because the strategies that he just outlines are far new strategies that are not being applied elsewhere this is going first to the department of education," he explained.

Aside from funding, Mayor Melissa Savares hopes that the Task Force will not only help the students, but the families these students come from in efforts to reduce dropout rates. "If we can help the families grow and get the skills that they need possibly with the Work Keys - the adult high school program - then they would feel better about helping their children to open up the library maybe for these programs to happen in the evenings. The schools are helping the children in the day, but what can we do to help the families excel?" she said.

As you can see, progress is already being made thanks to the collaboration of the various agencies. As requested by Senator Aline Yamashita, the Task Force will also include a representative from the University of Guam and the Guam Community College. Meanwhile during this morning's meeting the Task Force formed nine committees, with the Reform Committee headed by Torres scheduled to meet on Monday, February 13.

The task force will next meet as a whole on the 23rd.