18/08/2026
You matter, GUåhan!
School Closures: How Many More Until We Say Enough?
Opinion by Genesis Babauta for Kandit News and Views
First it was Simon Sanchez High School.
For years, Sanchez students have dealt with uncertainty, displacement, double sessions, and a school campus that could no longer properly serve them. Then finally, there seemed to be some relief.
Simon Sanchez students moved to the Tiyan campus. They finally returned to a full school day after years of attending double-session classes at John F. Kennedy High School. Three days later, Tiyan shut down too.
According to the Public Health inspection reported by the Pacific Daily News, Tiyan High School received 50 demerits, a D grade, and a notice of closure. Inspectors cited problems involving ventilation, temperature, lighting, drinking fountains, handwashing facilities, restrooms, locker rooms, floors, walls, ceilings, exits, windows, and other facility conditions.
The inspection itself reportedly came after complaints involving sewage backup, termite infestation, and metal objects hanging from doors.
Read that again.
These aren't students asking for luxury. We're talking about working bathrooms. Clean drinking fountains. Proper ventilation. Safe exits. Lighting. Sanitary classrooms. The basics.
At this point, Guam isn't dealing with one bad school. We're dealing with a pandemic of schools shutting down. First Sanchez. Now Tiyan. Who's next? Southern High? Another elementary school? Another middle school? How many schools have to deteriorate, fail inspections, relocate students, or close before the people of Guam finally say enough is enough?
And who takes responsibility? That's the question we constantly struggle to answer.
We can point at GDOE. GDOE can point at funding. Someone can point at the Legislature. Someone else can point at procurement. Then procurement, contractors, maintenance, federal requirements, old facilities, previous administrations, or decades of neglect enter the conversation.
Maybe some of those explanations are completely valid.
I'm still learning myself. I'm learning how government money comes in, where it goes, how procurement works, and how many steps it takes to actually get something repaired. I don't pretend to understand every part of that process. But I understand what the final result looks like.
Our children are being educated inside it. They're the ones sitting in deteriorating classrooms. They're the ones dealing with broken facilities. They're the ones being moved around. They're the ones whose education gets interrupted when adults fail to solve problems before they become emergencies.
At some point, the explanation doesn't change the outcome. A real leader isn't someone who is perfect. A real leader isn't someone who magically has every answer or every solution. A real leader is someone willing to stand in front of the people and say: This happened under our watch. This isn't acceptable. We're going to fix it.
Responsibility has become almost impossible to find because everyone is so busy making sure the blame lands somewhere else. Meanwhile, the students are still waiting. And this problem reminds me of something we see every single day on Guam. Our roads. A pothole opens. We patch it. It breaks again. We patch it again. Then another hole appears ten feet away. So we patch that one too. Eventually, we're not driving on a repaired road anymore. We're driving on patches connected by more patches.
That's what we're doing to our schools. Band-Aid after Band-Aid. Temporary fix after temporary fix. Move these students here. Repair this room. Close this building. Reopen another one. Find another temporary campus. Wait for funding. Wait for procurement. Wait for construction. Then something else breaks. Eventually, the Band-Aids stop working.
Tiyan should be a wake-up call because Sanchez students were supposed to finally get some stability. Instead, only days after beginning classes at the shared campus, both Tiyan and Sanchez students were once again affected by a closure. We cannot normalize this.
To the people of Guam, do not accept mediocrity simply because we've gotten used to it. It is possible to have clean schools. It is possible to have safe bathrooms. It is possible to have classrooms where students and teachers aren't wondering what is going to break next. It is possible to create beautiful, welcoming campuses where young people actually feel like their community values their education. Those expectations aren't unrealistic.
They're basic.
But achieving them requires more than outrage every time another inspection fails. Government leaders, GDOE leadership, the Guam Education Board, lawmakers, contractors, maintenance personnel, parents, students, and every stakeholder involved need to stop treating these problems as isolated emergencies. Because they're not isolated anymore. They're symptoms of something much bigger.
The pandemic of school closures we're witnessing today wasn't created overnight. It is the result of years of Band-Aid fixes, delayed decisions, neglected maintenance, complicated processes, and problems being allowed to grow until they become emergencies. Now all of it is coming back to bite us.
The question isn't just, "When will Tiyan reopen?" The bigger question is: What are we going to change so another school isn't next? Because we can repair another bathroom. We can replace another air conditioner. We can patch another ceiling. We can patch another pothole.
But if we don't fix the reason everything keeps falling apart, we'll be right back here again. Another school. Another closure. Another press release. Another group of students paying the price. Guam deserves better than that. Our teachers deserve better. And our students absolutely deserve better.
So when will it end? Maybe when we finally stop asking who we can blame and start demanding who is willing to take responsibility. Stop patching the road. Fix the road. And it's time we start doing the same thing with our schools.
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Genesis Babauta is a recent graduate of George Washington High School.
