Where do GDOE students stand? Summer school hopes to help

It may be summer, but many of the island's students are working extra hard to either catch up or get ahead. Some 4,700 students have enrolled in the Guam Department of Education's summer school program, which is more than twice what they'd normally get. But during last night's GEB meeting, Vice Chair Dr. Mary Okada had a specific question related to the registration rise. 

"How many students are currently behind," she asked. 

She further stated that students will not be able to do the new work if they haven't finished the old work. After much discussion, GEB Chairman Mark Mendiola finally revealed that when it comes to the number of students that have fallen behind:

"Technically we don't really know," he said. 

Although summer school is an opportunity for students to catch up, Deputy Joe Sanchez explained that they don't want to make it punitive.

"Where if you're gonna fall behind you have to come to summer school," he said. 

And if students choose to not go to summer school, they won't be forced to. 

"We didn't want to add the threat of retention where if you didn't go to summer school you're gonna be retained," Sanchez said. "I mean that was something that was understood way in the beginning is we didn't want to use this past year as a situation where we would consider if you're gonna be behind we're going to hold you back I mean I don't think the department is ready to do something like that and I don't think the community will ... something like that."

So if some students that need to catch up do attend summer school, then what happens to the ones that don't? Sanchez says that what the department will do is assess students at the beginning of the next school year to see where they stand academically. He says that one of the things they've told students is to start wherever they're at.

"We're really trying to push that from mind-hoods like learning loss where students are going to be behind or even terms like catch up because catch up implies that we're going to rush you to get up to speed and really we don't need to add that additional stress unto the students and to the teachers," Sanchez said. 

One thing the department is clear: if a child still wants to attend summer school, the superintendent says they still can. 

"If you're interested we're not going to turn you away because you missed the initial registration time frame," Fernandez said. 

As for registration for next school year, the superintendent shared more details. 

"We've got 87% of elementary students are expected back for face to face 84% of middle school students and 82% of high school students," Fernandez said.