by Krystal Paco

Guam - With just six weeks left until the start of classes, Sodexo Services Guam's project manager, Tracy Higuera, will be looking into the possibility of delaying renovations to 17 George Washington High School classrooms. The initial rush on the project's completion was to meet the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act deadline of September 30.

According to Governor Eddie Calvo's education liaison, Vince Leon Guerrero, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics upgrades, which are a part of ARRA, may not be at risk because local law says the money could be obligated by the deadline, and construction put off until the end of the school year. Concerns were raised, however, should the construction be delayed, the possibility of the contractor negating the price of the project due to changing prices of tools and equipment.

Earlier this week school faculty and staff met to discuss options to cope with classrooms going offline as the school already struggles with overcrowding. Teachers at Monday's meeting voted on double-session: upperclassmen attend a morning session while a 9th Grade Academy attends an afternoon session. This proposal would greatly impact bussing.

Department of Public Works director Joanne Brown spoke out on a roundtable discussion on Tuesday night, saying her agency could not accommodate any changes to any bell schedule. Brown says the bussing fleet averages 110 busses per day to cater to 39,000 school children and changing any bell schedule would have a domino effect.

At Wednesday night's stakeholder meeting, GW High teacher Bernie Aguon-Hernandez proposed staggering the renovations to address four classrooms at a time. Other suggestions included requesting assistance from the federal government to build temporary buildings to use as temporary classrooms.

New Department of Education superintendent Jon Fernandez was present at Wednesday's meeting where he told parents and students that although delaying the renovations would be easy, it's critical to get the STEM classrooms complete because students have waited too long. He assured them he wanted to hear their input before collaborating with affected agencies to address the situation.