Weekly Citizen's Address, July 23

 

Good morning Governor, and good morning my fellow Guamanians,

My name is Meihalani Cruz. I'm in the 10th grade attending George Washington High School. I would like to thank you for inviting me to your chambers to express my concerns about our community. My concerns I would like to mention are on the school system, DPW bussing, teen problems, budgets, jobs, and our highway safety.

 

My concerns toward the public school systems are the materials for learning. There is a low amount of books each year that aren't enough for our students to be able to comprehend the daily lessons. Each school should be able to have adequate books and computers for our students to use for education.

 

As the years pass, there is overcrowding of students and not enough teachers. There shouldn't be any problems like this. Everything should be maintained. Our island has a high rate of students not graduating. To prevent this there should be encouragement from teachers, and family explaining in detail what benefits you can achieve as graduates, but also giving them the right to choose what they want.

 

As I read on the news, the scheduling and bussing is a slight problem. All the public schools need to be looked at and shouldn't have any delay but to prioritize what needs to be done first. I am thankful that DOE is slowly progressing to fix the infrastructure of the schools on our island. Our island is lacking quite a bit of transportation for our schools. For this matter we should make a separate budget strictly for new buses itself, to prevent down time of the older buses.

 

Moving forward into teen issues as follows: drugs, pregnancy, bullying, and suicide. First off, drugs among teens have been caused by peer pressure.  A lot of teens don't realize the consequence for doing bad, and what their future holds. I myself am drug free because it shows me that I value and treasure my goals that I would like to accomplish in life. To prevent this there should be encouragement from the community, friends, and family that doing drugs isn't the right path in life.

 

As I look at our local high schools I see teen girls becoming moms. I think being focused on your education would prevent you from becoming a parent at a young age. Like the saying of my aunt, "Why have a kid at this age when you yourself are still a kid?"

 

Bullying on our island is what I find an immature way of expressing one's feelings to another. This issue causes so much emotional stress, which leads to suicide. Everybody should pitch a hand to help stop bullying on our island.

 

Mainly, all I have to say about our island's budget and jobs is to have appropriate funds for each department in our government so that there wouldn't be any financial issues in our government to worry about.

 

So, once again, I thank you for allowing me to express my concerns and I would like to say, continue to have effort to better our island.

 

Job well done, sir.

 

 

GOVERNOR CALVO:

 

The first thing I have to say about Meihalani, is ‘Bravo.' I can't tell you how happy it makes me as a leader and as a father to hear a student affirming that she is focused and that she is drug free. I know that many Guamanians have been tempted by drugs. Many have fallen to the disease of drug abuse. It takes a strong mind and a strong spirit like Meihalani's to just say ‘No.'

 

Many of the issues Meihalani is bringing up have become endemic in our society. Teen pregnancy, drug use among teens, suicide, and bullying all have root problems. They didn't just come to be just because. And she's right… it all starts with education. It starts with people talking to one another, listening to one another… people encouraging one another.

 

But as Meihalani said, it's hard for that to happen when things as fundamental as school books and computers aren't provided for students to learn. I am calling on the board and the Superintendent of Education to heed the advise of our education reform team… use federal money and the local money meant for textbooks… and buy a laptop or iPad for every student. We can load these devices with all the learning tools they need. We can help students achieve their full potential, as they are better users of technology than we are.

 

Not only that, every teacher needs a laptop as well. This leads to another point Meihalani brought up… the budget. She said, and I quote, "have appropriate funds for each department in our government so that there wouldn't be any financial issues." Even Mei, as young as she is, understands that the government takes in enough money from the taxpayers to operate. It's a matter of prioritizing this funding. With the hundreds of millions going to DOE right now, I have to agree with Mei that DOE and other agencies can be more wise about where to spend that money.

 

Finally, I want to thank the legislature for working with us on a solution to Meihalani's other concern: crowding in our schools and bussing for students. Recently-passed legislation gives me the authority to master plan renovations of existing schools and building of new schools. It also gives me the authority to finance all of this construction and to purchase 50 new school buses. It will take some time for those solutions to be completed, but it's a start.

 

Guam's leaders should all take notice. If we can all be as focused on the problems and solutions as Mei is, we could get a lot of work done.

 

So Meihalani, thank you so much for telling us about your concerns. You've done a great service for your island today.

 

Thank you, and God bless you all.