HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Head Start program officials told the legislative committee on education that there’s been progress in correcting safety and supervision deficiencies found by a federal review team.
Found deficient in their ability to maintain constant supervision of children, Angelina Lape, acting Head Start program director, said they called in an early childhood consultant to observe and identify where improvements were needed.
“She took that observation. She took also our program’s ongoing monitoring data and combined that into a training that she conducted with staff,” Lape said during an oversight hearing Thursday.
Individual support was also provided targeting areas the teachers and staff struggled with.
“We fine-tuned all of those strategies. While she’s doing that, we have also started to deploy everyone that we can from our Head Start central office,” Lape said.
Lape said she was happy to report that they are nearing full compliance with employee background check requirements.
“We are just on the cusp of meeting everything we need to do for this,” she said.
All program staff, including interns and consultants, must have a background check with fingerprinting per federal standards.
“Every single one of those people have been done – the current staff and interns. We have also done the background check on our school aides who the principals have assigned to provide paraeducator support to our special needs children,” Lape said.
The Head Start program has also made progress with keeping outdoor play areas safe.
Procurement for a fencing project made some headway. “The purchase order was handed off to our vendors,” Lape said. “We have two vendors. It was given to them on Friday.”
Fence installation is ongoing at 11 schools.
The Head Start program is also addressing noncompliance in keeping the facilities free from pollutants and toxins.
Lead was discovered in two cafeteria sinks.
“We did have our water tested by the (University of Guam Water and Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific) water quality lab. They tested a new classroom, which was Wettengel (Elementary School). … We have two classrooms there now. When the schools went back from (Maria A. Ulloa Elementary School) to their home school, the principal was able to identify a second classroom for us so that classroom was tested in December (2023),” Lape said.
That same month, the cafeteria sinks that tested positive for lead were also retested.
“Wettengel too was cleared and passed. Juan M. Guerrero (Elementary School) and Machananao (Elementary School), if you recall, the faucets were changed out. Head Start then conducted the second testing, and the results we received were that they passed. But in order for the schools to begin using those two particular cafeteria sinks, they need to be released by (the Guam Environmental Protection Agency),” Lape said.
She reported that Guam EPA cleared J.M. Guerrero Elementary School.
The Head Start program has until March to correct a number of deficiencies in areas of safety and supervision to prevent loss of federal funding.
An oversight hearing is held for the Guam Department of Education at the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024.
