
Last week, Guam Department of Education Superintendent Jon Fernandez met with federal officials in Washington D.C. to discuss GDOE’s high-risk status.
Accompanying Fernandez were Education Board Chairman Mark Mendiola and Vice Speaker Telena Nelson.
Also included in the visit were meetings with Assistant Secretary Frank Brogan, who oversees Elementary and Secondary Education for the U.S. Department of Education.
Fernandez says he has received a commitment from the U.S. Department of Education that they will send a delegation to Guam in February to review the progress Guam has made correcting the deficiencies in its handling of federal education funds, which has been greatly reduced in the past decade.
“We hope that the visit will happen in February,” Fernandez said.
The hope for GDOE is that the visit will result in a final resolution to the remaining conditions on the agency’s high-risk financial status which has forced the department to spend millions of dollars on a third-party fiduciary agent to oversee federal funds received by the department.
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