by Krystal Paco

Guam - Although the Attorney General's Office signed-off on GovGuam's lease agreement to purchase CoreTech buildings in Tiyan, there's plenty of tough decisions ahead to put an end to a decade-old problem of overcrowding at George Washington High School.

For Guam Education board vice chair Peter Alexcis Ada, GW's overcrowding situation is old news.

Constructed 46 years ago, Ada states the Mangilao campus was built to accommodate a student population of 1,700.

Over the years, another 10 classrooms were added bringing capacity to 2,100.

As of today, that's not the case. And with the New Year, the school could see new students too.

"As we speak today, it's a capacity 2,562 students. Come January we are anticipating, at least the school is anticipating a possibility of another 150 to come in of those who are transferring from other schools," he said.

Although there's plans to convert the CoreTech facility in Tiyan to a central high school to alleviate overcrowding at GW, Ada says re-assigning school districts are bound to follow.

"Remove a little bit of the over population of GW, JFK. Move some Okkodo students down to JFK. Move some Sanchez students down to Okkodo - the reality is we will have to face that and conduct that it will be necessary somebody's not going to be happy but we cannot, we would love to accommodate everybody but we have to be realistic with what our capacity is GW has already maximized itself. We're cheating the kids," he said.

Opening CoreTech as a central high could bring down GW's student population to under 2,000.

Although CoreTech could provide temporary relief, Ada recalls a prior educational task force identified the need for not just another central high school, but two more junior high schools and another elementary school too.