Guam - Representatives from the U.S. Department of Education are on island this week to validate whether progress documented in reports is actually happening at their local counterpart. With new leadership at the head of the class at DOE, a new financial management system that has gone live and a Corrective Action Plan that has been implemented, the USDOE arrived on island this week to see for themselves whether progress is actually occurring on Guam education.

USDOE senior consultant Christine Jackson noted, "Those are some of the things that we wanted to actually wanted to come on island and validate that all these things are actually working and the right people are involved in the implementation."

For nearly a decade, DOE has been on high-risk status for its broken financial system that resulted in the department being un-auditable for years. While things looked grim with corrective action plans and a third-party fiduciary agent put in place to stabilize things, the feds doe expressed confidence today that progress is being made. "In this visit we've been able to validate that improvements have been made," Jackson continued.

Mark Robinson, senior risk and systems consultant for USDOE, said, "We are quite impressed with what we saw in this visit clearly there is a commitment from the staff here to really embrace the improvements which is key to the success of the overall effort."

But there's still much more work ahead before DOE can get off the high-risk designation. The local agency will need to focus on procurement, its financial management system, payroll and fixed assets inventory to track funds and inventory. "So these are areas that they have to make sure they are cognizant of, in addition to having what we call internal controls," he said.

"We've seen improvements in the past but this is the one opportunity that we have seen kind of a bottom-up approach where folks have actually embraced the new financial management improvement system."

The new system takes the department from a heavily paper-based organization into an automated one. "So you're going to see more efficiencies in business processes here - you have new leadership and very strong leadership, which we also anticipate to create stability at the top, and you have folks within the organization who are readily embracing the upcoming change," said Jackson, who also noted that it's that mindset that is key to DOE's success.

The team met with elected officials and DOE management to ensure everyone has the same goal in mind: to get DOE off high-risk status. "You're talking about taking a big organization in a very different way and changing a paradigm within an organization that has probably functioned like this for over 20 years," said Jackson. "But we are seeing progress that is probably being expedited because of the people internally who are committed to make the change."

While there's no clear indication of how long it will take before DOE is taken off high-risk status, superintendent Jon Fernandez says it's nice that DOE can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. He said, "And I think this visit has really validated the progress that we've made to this point...and I'm just looking forward that we can put this system in place the right way and turn our attention back to the central mission which is educating our children.

Meanwhile, USDOE officials confirm that Governor Eddie Calvo's request to extend the September 30th ARRA deadline is being reviewed with an official approval of the deadline extension forthcoming. DOE is in the process of obligating $60 million in ARRA funds for capital improvement projects and technology upgrades for the island's 40 public schools.