The Guam Department of Education is about to undergo a major shift, with plans to “right-size” or decommission select campuses. The change follows a steady decline in student enrollment, leaving more capacity in schools than the students they actually serve. 

Dr. Kenneth Swanson, GDOE Superintendent said, “But the change that we need to make is to make sure that we are financially viable and that we’re being good custodians of the public trust and the public funds that we have.” 

Still, which schools and how many are yet to be determined, as education officials take into consideration several factors, including community input, slated to kick off tonight at southern high school.

“Based on my experience with this kind of activity before, we’re gonna need to take a little bit more time with gathering community input, knowing that at the end of the day, there will be discomfort generated because of change,” said Swanson. 

Swanson explained the process forward when decisions are ultimately made.

“So there could be the decision to wait a year, there could be a decision to phase in–let’s say we anticipate six schools, we’ll do two a year for three years, that’s the kind of determination that will come from the board, and then we’ll act on it from there,” he said. 

Meantime, conversations on how the reorganization will impact students, teachers, staff, transportation, and more will continue with the central and northern regions through this week’s community input sessions. 

Swanson adding this will provide his team with enough information to get into an analysis the following week.

The sessions will also stream live on KUAM's Facebook page.