“I took the same classes, got the same degree but DOE classified my coworker as Teacher III and me as Teacher II. Why?” This question was asked by a group of new teachers to President Rector when he spoke in Dr. Sanchez’s class at UOG. In his meeting with Superintendent Underwood, he raised his concerns about personnel’s misinterpretation of the Guam Education Policy Board’s Resolution 2010-04 . Currently DOE personnel’s interpretation is penalizing teachers that achieve the coveted “highly qualified” status by earning their Bachelor’s in a specific subject before taking the classes needed for certification by not counting their education classes toward Teacher III status. We believe this is not just a misinterpretation but extremely bad policy for a number of reasons: • IT ISN’T FAIR: Teacher’s that take the same amount of classes deserve the same amount of pay. • IT HURTS TEACHER RETENTION: 1 in 3 teachers leave the profession in their first 3 years and half leave by the 5th. Teachers that feel they were treated unjustly are less likely to stick with this challenging profession. • IT DISCOURAGES PEOPLE FROM BECOMING TEACHERS: There are a multitude of programs designed to help people that already hold degrees become teachers, but if they aren’t going to be treated fairly when they achieve their certification far fewer people will consider taking this path. • IT PENALIZES “HIGHLY QUALIFIED” TEACHERS: Federal law encourages teachers to become highly qualified but this policy takes pay away from teachers that achieve this. Superintendent Underwood promised President Rector that she would look into the matter and hopefully she will rectify this bad misinterpretation. President Rector has already discussed the issue with GFT’s attorneys and will go forward with making this right in court if need be.