Help PR Montessori public school transformation

This school year began by celebrating the birth of the Montessori public project in three municipalities on the island: Arecibo, Fajardo and Coamo.

In this edition of our "newsletter" we review Coamo, where the first public Montessori school in the Ponce school district was born.

For Coamo and its mayor,  education is a priority. During the 2022-23 academic year, in community conversations, interest on the part of the families and teachers in Montessori pedagogy emerged. After several meetings with the Assistant Secretary for Montessori Education and the Instituto Nueva Escuela, a plan was drawn up to establish Montessori in two schools in the municipality.

The Benigna Inés Caratini school is reopened, in the Palmarejo neighborhood, a school that had been closed in 2018, with “mandate” from the community to make it a Montessori school. This August the school opens its doors and serves about 75 students from the levels of Early Childhood and Elementary I.

This summer was an intense one for this community, school personnel and municipality. The teachers began their training as Montessori guides at INE, Early Childhood and Elementary l. Like the director in her training in the Montessori directors course.

Activity at the school did not stop during the summer months when the school was cleaned, painted and rehabilitated. While staff from the municipality prepared the "house for the boys and girls", the school staff, who were arriving, convened, oriented and met with the families who were anxious to start this "new school" for their sons and daughters. Environments were set up and the school was decorated with precious plants to welcome each and every one of the boys and girls.

"This school community, this town, has given us an example of what can be achieved when you have faith and deep love," commented the founder of the INE at the school's inauguration on August 25. In 60 days, "record" time, they managed to put the campus that today operates as a Montessori public school in optimal conditions.

''I live in love with the project and the Montessori system. I am extremely happy to be on this stage. We are doing our best. It has been a joint effort, hard, but everything is for the community and the students," said the director of the Benigna Inés Caratini school. 

Last Friday, August 25, the school held the inauguration ceremony together with the entire school community. The mayor, families, members of SAEM, INE and residents of the school community were present. The singer-songwriter Tito Auger joined this great celebration and sang to the community, to which the boys and girls danced with great joy. A real party for this community.

"Now there is life," said a neighbor of the school for more than 50 years, who stated that the open school gives life to the neighborhood again.

The Susana Rivera school, in the same way, began the Montessori project with an Early Childhood environment that serves about 24 students. The environment is called "Apollo del Sur", alluding to that ship whose mission was the first arrival of human beings on the moon. 

For the teacher the arrival of the project was received with great enthusiasm by the parents. She sees Montessori as justice for children.

“It is an opportunity that comes to our school to learn about other methods. I know it's going to bear fruit," said the guide. 

Susana Rivera School serves students in grades Kindergarten through Fifth, with an enrollment of about 500 students.

For two weeks, friends allied with the Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (ATP) school in La Parguera offered summer workshops to 38 students on marine and coastal ecosystems, and on environmental photojournalism.

The dream of achieving these training spaces for young people was born from the school guides, who knew many resources in the community that could provide experiences that enrich the curriculum.

The friends of Sea Grant, CARICOOS and Marine Sciences managed to give students from 12 to 17 years old incredible experiences in marine ecosystems near their school community.

They visited Magueyes Island, the Caribe Fisheries aquaculture farm, did snorkeling, fishing workshops, sargassum, worked with sea urchins among other living beings, and built an aquaponic system.

In the photojournalism workshops they were taught about photography, videos, editing, writing texts that describe the visual piece, and how to document the experiences they had during the week. 

At the end, they were able to present to their families everything documented and learned in this great experience that is made accessible to secondary school students.

This is the first time that the Alejandro Tapia y Rivera school manages to have summer workshops like these for students. It should be noted that thanks to more than 30 people these workshops were possible.

''For me it was an extraordinary experience, the same for my colleagues, because we were able to see first-hand the need and lack of knowledge that students have about the coastal areas of Puerto Rico, so it was an opportunity to strengthen that area that even the parents present the last day asked for them”, shared Efra Figueroa, Coordinator of the summer workshops.

The ATP school is part of the Public Montessori project and has a focus on Marine Sciences, which is why last March CARICOOS signed a collaborative agreement with the Department of Education to have efforts like these in said school and with a view to more schools benefit from these topics and experiences so important and enriching for the students of Puerto Rico.