New Montessori public school in Las Piedras
The Family Committee of the Montessori Juana Sánchez school in Juncos worked hard during the last three years searching for a place where their children could continue the Montessori education that they had lived during Elementary school. Today, August 2021 they celebrate that their dream has come true!
The Juana Sánchez school has been in the Montessori public school project since 2012. It started with a Casa de Niños and those little ones who arrived at 3, 4, and 5 years old today are in Taller III (middle school). Guides, families, students, and the principal built a great school for their La Placita community in Juncos. The project grew with the students, but the school became too small… and the community looked for a new space.
In its neighboring town of Las Piedras, the sister Montessori school José de Diego was born. It had a similar experience to Juana Sánchez: excellence, participation, and growth. The families of the sister town also had to look for a high school. They worked together with the town authorities and got the Mayor, Miguel A. López Rivera, on board to give them the Matías Rivera School, a facility that had been closed since 2018 in the Pueblito del Río community.
That's how the two stories came together, two communities that dreamed of a good middle and high school for their youth. In August 2021 the Matías Rivera school will reopen as the first Casa del Joven Montessori in Las Piedras. Located on the border with Juncos, it will provide about 90 young people with a dignified and safe place, with open spaces and enough rooms to be able to meet calmly during the pandemic.
Carmen Báez, a mother of a Taller III student and a member of the Family Committee, expresses that this new campus is "very necessary for our families and new families from nearby towns, for our peace of mind. We have a great opportunity, not only for our students but for students from neighboring towns’’.
Families and neighbors of Del Río community cleaned the school campus last Saturday, July 24, so that this new academic year the students and guides can enjoy their new space.
The director of the Montessori Juana Sánchez school, Professor Liliam Rosario, proudly described her school community as a united and active one, where families and guides are very integrated, committed and involved. She celebrates that for Del Rio community, where they have arrived, this has been a cause for celebration and an example.
Between brooms and rakes, families continue to dream. They dream that with their sons and daughters the program will continue to grow and this new school will serve them through the 12th grade. This would be one of the first Montessori high schools in the southeast area of the island. "We are thinking about the community, about sister schools, in Puerto Rico ... so that they have a secondary school where students can continue their studies within a culture and values that they have learned since Casa de Niños," shared the guide, Karolimar García.