Many are asking for a direct response to the question, “Why are government officials only now rushing to fix the campuses?”

KUAM asked Governor Lou Leon Guerrero and Guam DOE Superintendent Kenneth Swanson that very question.

“I want to make it very clear that by law and by the organic act, I do not have authority over the Guam Department of Education. The authority lies in the superintendent and the authority lies in the elected school board. And so that question probably should be posed and answered by the superintendent,” said Leon Guerrero.

“I think they could improve in organizing maintenance and improve to place maintenance people at the schools so along the school year if the door needs to be repaired then repair them...don't wait until public health comes to inspect you and you are running around trying to get all this work done,” she added.

Dr. Swason weighed in as well, saying, “That’s a misunderstanding. Our folks have been working constantly on this. In fact, I’ve had my maintenance teams working literally overtime seven days a week since December.”

“It’s not that it’s all of a sudden. It is, first of all, the thing that put more pressure on it was the failure of 317, which would’ve allowed us to continue the process we were doing for the last year. If that bill passed, we wouldn’t be seeing any of this disruption right now,” he added.

As KUAM reported, the Governor's SORT team has a list of the needs to make repairs ahead of Public Health inspections.

A reminder, Ordot-Chalan Pago Elementary is set to open for classes tomorrow.

Education officials said all students should be back to learning by next week, Aug. 22.