After a challenging two and a half years, the Guahan Academy Charter School successfully secured its funding and a facility, setting the wheels in motion to open as Guam's first charter school this fall. The pre-K through 12th grade school is sponsored by NIFDI and will utilize DI for core instructional programs.
Donna Dwiggins, Ph.D, CEO/Principal said upon hearing the good news, “This is a good day for education on Guam.”
With four months to opening day and no time to spare, Dwiggins swiftly put her team into action registering students and preparing Guahan Academy Charter School to open its doors by August 2013. By the end of the 4-week registration period, the school had collected a list of 800 applicants. This was an amazing turnout, especially since Guahan Academy Charter School was only allotted 500 student slots for this upcoming school year.
Although all charter schools are required to hold student lotteries by law, this lottery would also be helpful in randomly filling the 500 students slots allowed for this school year. Guam’s first charter school held its student lottery on June 19th at the center court of Agana Shopping Center in the island’s capital.
The lottery was conducted using randomizing software created by Joseph Irvine. Mr. Irvine, president of iConsulting, LLC, created the software specifically for conducting charter school student lotteries. A proud product of a charter school system himself, Mr. Irvine was excited to be a part of the opening of Guam’s first charter school. He was flown in from Utah to attend and conduct the charter school lottery.
As the lottery took place, the names of students for each grade were called out and assigned a letter and a number to indicate their selection status. ‘A’ meant that the student was accepted while ‘W’ indicated that they were wait listed. The assigned number showed the student’s rank on those two lists.
Parents were in attendance anxiously hoping to hear if their child was selected. Fortunately, this is the first of many lotteries for the Guahan Academy Charter School. For those parents who may not have succeeded for this school year, Dwiggins is happy to say, “There is always next year.”
Interested in learning more about Guahan Academy Charter School? Find them online HERE.
