Students adrift after quake as Puerto Rican schools close
SANTA ISABEL, PUERTO
RICO» Class was about to start when a father drove up to a gazebo that Nydsy Santiago had converted into a makeshift preschool and pulled her aside.
Could she please, he wondered, take his daughter as one of her students?
Santiago declined with a heavy heart and explained that she was only authorized to teach her own 23 students, who are among more than 194,000 children in Puerto Rico left out of school nearly a month after a 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit the island’s southern region and forced officials to permanently close dozens of public schools.
“I hope this goes back to normal for everyone,” said Santiago as she chased after papers that the wind blew away on a recent morning.
But few believe that will happen. Classes in this U.S. territory were supposed to start Jan. 9, and while 331 schools opened late as a result of the quake, 61% of the island’s 856 public schools remain shuttered as a growing number of critics blame the island’s Department of Education for the situation.
Mercedes Martínez, president of Puerto Rico’s Federation of Teachers, said it’s unacceptable that no alternatives have been found for children who attend one of the 525 schools that remain closed.
“The government of Puerto Rico has been negligent from the beginning,” she said. “They have not been quick. They have not been strategic. They don’t have a plan on how to start the semester at this point.”
The situation has led to an increase in home schooling and prompted some teachers, such as Santiago, to voluntarily find an appropriate outdoor location and resume classes with permission from parents. Santiago began scouting her hometown of Santa Isabel after 19 of 23 parents responded with a range of excited emojis when she proposed the idea last month in a Whatsapp group.
Santiago drove around the southern coastal town and considered holding class in a nearby park until she spotted the swings and cement benches. She eventually settled on a small gazebo near a running track owned by the town whose officials supplied her with plastic tables and chairs and even installed white curtains to block out the sun.
The curtains flew over the heads of her students this week as they painted, swatted at clouds of gnats while they laughed and excitedly pointed to a military helicopter that buzzed past them. Watching the scene from afar was fellow kindergarten teacher Esther Cordero, who shook her head as she criticized government officials grappling with the aftermath of a quake that killed one person, destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes and prompted President Donald Trump to approve a major disaster declaration.
“They should have invested immediately in trailers,” she said. “And if not that, tarps at least.”
Her colleague, Madeline Cruz, a 37-year-old mother of three children whose school remains closed, nodded vigorously.
“The Department of Education is not paying attention to this,” she said. “There are other alternatives.”
The complaints over the government’s lack of response echoed those that arose after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm in September 2017, causing more than $100 billion in damage and killing an estimated 2,975 people in its aftermath.
The women planned to follow Santiago’s lead and hoped to hold classes in other nearby gazebos if they obtained permission from the parents, adding that they were tired of waiting for the government to act.
Eligio Hernández, Puerto Rico’s education secretary, did not return messages left with a spokesman despite repeated requests for comment. He announced Sunday that another 103 schools were opening this week.