HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) —Could developing an agreement with village residents to live on school campuses be the solution needed to keep schools safe and secure outside of the school day? A couple of Guam Education Board members believe it could work.
During the Guam Education Board meeting on Tuesday, the newly appointed Mayors’ Council of Guam representative to the board, Dededo Mayor Peter Benevente, noted that several schools in his village of Dededo have been targeted. He proposed to have “trustworthy family” stay on the school grounds “as security.”
“Have you ever thought about something like that? And I believe my understanding, too, I’m not sure what (Wettengel Elementary School) has, but there are a few classrooms that aren’t being used. We can possibly think about doing the same thing with Finegayan Elementary School and Wettengel, because those schools, by my understanding, have been hit very hard in the last several years,” Benavente said.
Board member Judith Guthertz noted that the mayor’s idea was not new. She said during the administration of former Gov. Ricky Bordallo, modular homes were purchased and put on school grounds. According to Guthertz, at the time families stayed in the modular homes and acted as security for campuses. She said it was a successful effort.
The subject of theft at Guam Department of Education schools came up several times during the last Guam Education Board meeting, as the impacts are being felt financially. An example of this is the increased costs for the F.B. Leon Guerrero Middle School campus refurbishment.
Board member Peter Alecxis Ada questioned whether the project was on track for completion in July, given the challenges, which included theft.
“We are still targeting that July, taking into consideration all of these other things that have happened; theft of copper wiring, the disavowed original procurement by the (attorney general) and an order awaiting funding that is also pending draw down from U.S. Department of Education. In spite of all that, we are looking at July for the opening of FBLG,” responded GDOE Superintendent Kenneth Erik Swanson.
While Swanson gave assurances that the project remained on target, other concerns about theft were raised by newly elected board Chair Angel Sablan regarding the $120 million contract with Core Tech International, which has seen multiple change order requests, in part due to theft.
The Guam Daily Post is affiliated with Core Tech International.
“You talk about theft of materials, copper wire, things like that. Why should GDOE fork out money for somebody coming and stealing their property? Don’t they have their own security guards?” Sablan asked.
Swanson clarified that the copper wire stolen belonged to GDOE and not the contractor.
“The wire that was stolen was not the property of the contractor. It was wire that was installed in the buildings at FBLG, it was stripped out of the walls,” Swanson explained. “This was early on in the project. Some property of the contractor was damaged, but they took care of that,” Swanson said.
Sablan has been pushing for increased security at schools and noted the $1.5 million intended for a security contract.
“We don’t have that. So, every school is falling to the hands of no-good people who just want to make our work harder,” Sablan said.
Sablan said he saw how Saipan is securing its temporary classrooms during a recent personally funded trip there.
“We couldn’t even go in the gate because, even on a Saturday, they had somebody monitoring that gate so there’s no chance for anyone to steal those materials or take away those materials. But here it’s just open sesame on all the schools,” Sablan said.
Many GDOE schools are lacking adequate fencing to secure the campuses, an issue the department has been trying to address since Typhoon Mawar. However, the project is not complete, leaving facilities vulnerable.
Despite being the target of theft, GDOE will have to come up with the money to cover its losses.
“Where do we come up with the money? We steal it from other projects or the other programs that we have because we don’t have an endless bank account to continue to fund these things,” Sablan said.
Being targeted by thieves coming into schools, however, is not the only issue GDOE faces. According to Swanson, the property office filed the results of the 2024 audit of inventory and accountability and found that several schools have significant losses of equipment such as laptops.
Swanson said GDOE is making efforts to recover laptops and, while some have been recovered, a large number have been identified as stolen.
GDOE’s inventory reflects 40,000 laptops, but Swanson was not able to identify the exact number of laptops that were stolen. However, he hinted at potential adverse action on four schools based on property losses.
“To teach accountability, apparently that was not a historical practice,” Swanson said.
