HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Guam Department of Education Superintendent Kenneth Erik Swanson has an internal team weighing what schools to close and what student populations to combine to “right size” the department as early as the end of this school year.
Redistributing, rezoning and closure of some of GDOE’s 41 school facilities island wide is a result of the decreasing student population.
“Overall, (in the) right sizing of GDOE, an internal K-12 team has developed a process … to identify school communities that could possibly be combined to more fully utilize school campuses,” Swanson said during the Guam Education Board meeting on March 19.
He old board members that “some options have been developed.”
While the names of schools up for possible closure have floated around in the community, the superintendent has been adamant that no such decisions have been made.
“(The) next steps are to include the community stakeholders from schools, mayor’s offices and the board in reaching decisions on the realignment and attendance areas to fully service the smaller population in the best way possible,” he said.
However, the timeline for this to happen is short.
“The intent is here that maybe some consolidations we can do at the end of this year for next school year and phase farther out (in) two or three years,” Swanson added.
In other efforts, GDOE is working to address concerns with Simon Sanchez High School being hosted at the John F. Kennedy High School campus.
“A working group of high school principals and central office leaders are working together to develop options for servicing Simon Sanchez students in an option better than (the) JFK double session,” Swanson said.
It has been noted by GDOE officials that closures of some schools could free up a campus for SSHS to utilize for the duration of the construction of a new campus.
Kenneth Erik Swanson
