By By Julianne Hernandez Pacific Daily News
Copyright guampdn
The Guam Department of Education is racing to meet a federal compliance deadline of Oct. 27 or risk losing $546,902 in funding tied to the Personal Responsibility Education Program, PREP, after receiving a formal notice of noncompliance on Aug. 27.
At the center of the dispute is the federally funded “Making Proud Choices!” curriculum, which includes student activities prompting identification of personal pronouns.
Federal authorities flagged these as violations of program guidelines, following a January executive order from President Donald Trump that recognizes only male and female sexes and prohibits federal promotion of gender transition concepts.
GDOE confirmed that $525,998.13 in PREP funds remain unspent and is working with curriculum developer Education Training Research, ETR, Associates to revise the materials. The required revisions involve removing Activities B and C from Module 1.
The education department is waiting for legal clearance from ETR and access to a PDF version of the curriculum to proceed.
“GDOE is still awaiting a document from ETR’s legal department in order to release the PDF version of the curriculum,” Guam State PREP Project Director Cellini Higa told the Pacific Daily News on Monday.
The department reported that once the PDF version of the document is received, it will revise and resubmit the curriculum to the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees the PREP grant.
“GDOE anticipates resubmission of the modified curriculum to ACF this week,” Higa said.
She confirmed that removing the flagged content will not affect instruction, staff, or program outcomes.
“Activity B is an optional welcome activity. At the time of implementation, students are already familiar with one another, so introductions are not necessary,” Higa said. “Removing this activity entirely will not impact the quality of learning.”
On Friday, GDOE spokesperson Damen Borja said GDOE hadn’t received the fully editable version because of copyright laws as advised by ETR’s legal team.
He said the PDF version ETR will provide can be edited through Adobe tools and Higa will annotate the PDF and strike the pages out of the hard copy material.
Higa explained that while Activity C deals with establishing classroom norms, any reference to gender ideology will be removed.
Flexibility
“Developing guidelines as a group fosters cohesion and increases the likelihood that the agreements will be respected. GDOE proposes to redact and annotate in this activity any language pertaining to gender ideology,” she said. “’The Making Proud Choices!’ curriculum is designed with flexibility and allows for modifications as needed. Removing the cited non-compliant language will not impact the quality of learning or program outcomes.”
Throughout the revision process, the department has remained in close contact with both ACF and ETR to ensure proper compliance steps are followed.
“Guidance from ACF was to ‘agree with the removal of the cited language’ and re-submit modified curriculum for review,” Higa said. “ETR has received numerous similar requests from organizations implementing their curriculum and advised marking up changes and resubmitting to ACF.”
Despite ongoing follow-ups, GDOE still lacks the necessary file access to begin revisions.
“Because GDOE does not have a PDF version of the curriculum, I reached out to ETR for a copy. They informed me that their legal department would send a document for me to complete in order to release the PDF,” she said
On Sept. 9, Higa said she was told to expect the DocuSign within 48 hours, but as of Friday, Sept. 12, she had not received it.
“I followed up and was informed by the program development manager that some team members were out due to illness, but she assured me that they are working on it and will check in with their team again,” she said.
Once federal approval is granted, the revised curriculum will be available to the public upon request.
Higa confirmed the education department expects to meet the deadline.
