Education officials discuss charter school's fate

by Krystal Paco

Guam - Amendments to Public Law 31-233 could be the Guahan Academy Charter School's saving grace at opening doors in the near future. While discussing Department of Education superintendent Jon Fernandez's letter to her office, chairperson of the Legislative Committee on Education Speaker Judi Won Pat tells KUAM News legislation could be changed in order to fund the startup of the island's first charter school to take from DOE's reserve rather than their current operating budget.

"We actually went through the three points of his letter whether separate funding should come about or a pro-ration a new list and no one's really arguing all of that what we decided to do at least in our discussion is that we asked Frank Arriola from the Governor's Office is that there's this 15% reserve," she said.

As we reported Tuesday, Fernandez stated he could not authorize the allocation of $5,500 per Guahan Academy Charter School enrollee from the DOE budget as the department is already crunching numbers trying to serve 31,000 students this school year. "I have always said I'm in favor of charter schools and I think this particular situation has put the department in a peculiar position of needing resources and having to fork out in order to start a separate organization that is essentially competition for the public schools," he said.

Along with changing the source of funding, Fernandez asks that the legislation remove him as superintendent from having to validate the funding for the charter school as well as clarify that any funds taken from any part of DOE's budget be prorated. "The $5,500 per student amount that was being contemplated earlier this fiscal year was to cover the cost for the whole fiscal year since the charter school plans to open sometime this summer they won't need the whole amount so we think its fair to pro rate to give them the monthly allotments based on that preliminary amount basically giving them the two months or the three months once they're opened other than that that amount that was set aside is already being used for those students who are still in our schools."

His last request - that amendments include that he be allowed to validate the enrollment for GACS so GDOE can plan accordingly as to what teachers and students will be making the move from public school to charter school. Although they've yet to identify a school site, the new target opening for the island's first charter is set for July or August.