Parents want positive change for their students

This week, a legislative oversight hearing delved deeper into the challenges parents of Guam Department of Education (GDOE) students with disabilities face.

Advocating for change, parents are making emotional pleas for Senators to help give children access to the education they deserve.

During the oversight hearing, parents testified against GDOE’s Special Education Division, expressing their difficulties that come with navigating an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) system.

Among those who testified was Josephine Blas, a parent of an Inalahan Middle School (IMS) student.

She shared, “I often don’t feel like the school tries to help. It’s a really confusing document, and they write it in such a way that when they talk to you, it seems to make sense, but when you read it, it’s really hard–and this is the document that’s supposed to take care of our child, it’s supposed to help them progress.”

The IEP is a legal document meant to ensure that a child with an identified disability is given specialized instruction, support, and services to help them to thrive in school.

However, GDOE parents including Blas, says the IEPs often fall to the wayside, stating that she did not receive a progress report on her son in a year.

GDOE’s data showed overdue IEPs in middle and high school are at 4.1% and 10.4 respectively.

The data reflects the reality of Paola Agostini’s middle school daughter– whose IEP is years old. 

Agostini shared, “My child is in 7th grade right now, and she has goals from elementary. They are long expired; they don’t work anymore, clearly.”

Her daughter’s IEP requires a daily log–but Agostini states after she filed a lawsuit against the GDOE superintendent and Guam Education Board (GEB) for allegedly violating the Adequate Education Act, communication between her and her daughter’s school was suspended.

Agostini and her Attorney Daniel Sommerfleck have called Lawmakers to take action.

“So I think it’s important for you as policymakers to put forward a policy that these services can’t wait–that a three-month window should be plenty of time to complete an IEP. That’s not even a gray area for me. How could you make a child wait for almost a year before they have goals and objectives that are individualized to them?” Sommerfleck said.

Agostini expressed, “I really would like you to pass a local law to limit the duration of IEPs to 3 months.”