Coamo becomes the first municipality in the Ponce school district with a public Montessori school

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, Juan Carlos Garcia Padilla, 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, Betzy Rivera and Mariasabel Viera and Elementary l, Mairym Negrón and Aida Cruz. Like the director Angeline Santiago 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 Ana Maria 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, Angeline Santiago.

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 Nydia E. Torres, 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. Their guide Raquel Rodriguez Rivera has a mission – to develop for her students the first Montessori environment in the school.

For Raquel, 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," Rodriguez shared.

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