AFTER Guam Department of Education Superintendent Jon Fernandez released a statement on delaying the implementation of the 4AB schedule for one year, Speaker Judi Won Pat, chairperson of the committee on education, announced she will be convening a roundtable meeting next week to provide a venue for dialogue between stakeholders and the Guam Education Board as well as other GDOE officials regarding the controversial bell schedule.
“What I’d like to do is to steer this whole roundtable in the direction where we are going to use this one year, not as a one year reprieve, but as a year to really look at the schedule – to plan, to talk, and then come up with the best schedule for our schools and our schoolchildren and the teachers themselves,” Won Pat said.
“We’ve been receiving a lot of calls and emails from teachers and I’ve been running into them as I go into the schools,” she added.
As a former educator, Won Pat cited the importance of gathering data or information before the development and implementation of any program or policy. Buy-in is also critical to the process in order to empower the stakeholders to fully implement the program or policy, she emphasized.
“If you don’t do these things, then it is going to fail,” she said.
However, she fears the discussion that had started was too soon toward the end of the school year or too soon to get everyone to buy in.
“I was afraid it will end up like some of the programs in the department that has failed. It failed because you don’t have enough people bought in to the program – people who really liked the program, who are really vested in it to make it succeed,” she explained.
Invited
Won Pat said she has already informed Fernandez about the planned roundtable discussion.
“The superintendent will be there. We are also extending invitations to the board members and to the schools, the high schools in particular. But what we also want to do is we don’t want a long list of people wanting to come up and speak – we want the schools to designate somebody that would be their spokesperson so this would run smoothly,” she stated.
The 4AB roundtable discussion will be held on Tuesday, July 10, 6:30 p.m. at the public hearing room of the Legislature.
