HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Department of Education has 60 vacant teacher positions to fill across the school system to meet the Adequate Education Act’s requirement to have a certified teacher in every classroom.
The requirement is one of the Act’s 14 points to ensure that teachers are not overwhelmed and students get the attention they need to thrive in their education. To meet this, GDOE not only must have a certified teacher for every class, but those classes cannot exceed student-teacher ratios set in the collective bargaining agreement with the Guam Federation of Teachers.
“So we’re still recruiting and working with the University of Guam. We also have our program for certifying our temporary teachers. … That program is moving forward, and we will still need to recruit heavily,” Superintendent Kenneth Erik Swanson reported to the Guam Education Board at the March meeting.
The report didn’t sit well with GEB member Maria Gutierrez, who asked what happened to the cross-leveling efforts the superintendent spoke of in previous meetings.
“How many teachers are still excess? Because I did my homework. I called some of the schools and some of them are still waiting for teacher vacancies to be filled,” Gutierrez said. “Special Education teachers, how many are in the building? … Remember, we are being sued.”
During the Dec. 19, 2023, board meeting, Swanson asserted that staff cross-leveling was in the final process and teachers would be in place by Jan. 16.
At the time, he said once these teachers were in place, GDOE would have a better understanding of the remaining need across the grade levels and will know how many teachers will need to be recruited.
Another requirement of the Adequate Education Act is to have a number of certified personnel filling various roles throughout the educational system.
“Certified professional administrators, all schools are offering certified administrators, principals and assistant principals. Certified counselors, all school have access to services of certified counselors for the students. Certified health counselors, all schools have access to certified health counselors as well. Certified allied health professionals, all schools have access to certified allied health professionals,” Swanson reported.
Again, Gutierrez said she believed there was error in the superintendent’s report and noted that she believed someone else prepared the superintendent’s report.
“Certified guidance counselor. There’s schools that don’t have. Not all schools have (a) guidance counselor. We are tired … of asking, requesting. So this is not true,” Gutierrez said.
She also wanted the superintendent to explain what an allied health professional is because he asserted that “all schools have access.”
“Whoever prepared this for you, they gave information that is not accurate, and I trust the principals out there, that they are not being heard,” Gutierrez said.
Later in the meeting, when asked by board member Peter Alecxis Ada about high school teacher vacancies, Swanson confirmed there were some vacancies at the high school level.
“I don’t have that number. I do know that the high school situation, some of the vacancies are for teachers for courses they want to teach but are not offering because they don’t have teachers for it,” Swanson said.
GEB Chair Mary Okada clarified, “What the superintendent is saying is that there may be vacancies, but no warm bodies in them. Therefore, no classes that are affected by the vacancies.”
Kenneth Erik Swanson
