Community learning centers providing students access to equipment, internet

Throughout the course of the pandemic, the Guam Department of Education has continued to deliver students education through different avenues of learning. But many may not have been able to make it to the Zoom classes due to the lack of tech devices and internet access. Now, that's no longer an issue. Tyler Matanane has more on the opening of Guam's first community learning centers.


No internet access? No tech device? No problem!
On Tuesday, eight GDOE schools officially opened their doors to the public to serve as community learning centers. KUAM went to C.L. Taitano where half of the cafeteria has been transformed to accommodate for center. GDOE Superintendent Jon Fernandez shared the details. 

"At every one of our community learning centers what we were looking for was a space that would enable us to maintain a safe environment for our students and our employees," he said. "And so whether we're using cafeterias or library spaces we'll be able to really maintain the physical distancing for students who come in. We have mobile carts laptop carts which have about 30 laptops per cart that will be dedicated to serving the community learning center and if we need more of course we have technology that's coming in e funded by our federal funds that will help us with that effort."

The centers are open to all public and private schools on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays from 3:30- 7 p.m. The eight center sites are Astumbo Elementary, C.L. Taitano, J.Q. San Miguel, Machananao, Price Elementary, Talofofo Elementary, Upi Elementary, and George Washington High. Students under 14 years of age must be accompanied by an adult.

Down the road, there will be an additional 21 more schools, meaning 21 more community centers across the island, allowing GDOE to further provide opportunity and support to those that have had challenges with access to technology.

Through a bid, GDOE is also working to provide home wifi internet access to families. The due date for vendors to submit their proposals is Feb. 22.

"So that'll enable more of our students then to really be able to take advantage of the online model of learning even if we get back to face to face we do believe online learning will continue and we'll figure out exactly how it will continue but we certainly don't want access to be a problem," Fernandez said. 

Fernandez says that at the end of the day, what the department hopes to see is an island-wide network of community learning centers to support the students and families of Guam.