Puerto Rico’s students struggle after Maria
SAN LORENZO, Puerto Rico – Luz Rodriguez routinely teaches her ninthgrade science class at Escuela Superior José Campeche in the dark for fear that rainwater pooled in the ceiling will spark a fire if she turns on the lights.
Cellphone chargers line the wall of Wanda Calderon’s 12th-grade Spanish class. Calderon allows her students to charge during class because most of them have no power at home.
Roof tiles, sheet rock, dead branches and other storm debris rot in a large pile outside the school, and water streams from classroom ceilings during heavy rains.
All throughout José Campeche, a high school in this mountainous hamlet in southeast Puerto Rico, are reminders of the destruction and sluggish recovery from Hurricane Maria six months ago. The storm’s impact on schools can be felt throughout the island as thousands of students have left Puerto Rico and many schools still struggle to provide basic needs, such
as electricity and hot meals.
José Campeche is one of the luckier ones: The building escaped major damage and power returned to campus just two months after the storm. Still, students and faculty here have struggled in a school and home environment that’s far from normal.
The school lost only about 40 of its 634 pre-storm student population, but many who stayed lack electricity at home and often show signs of posttraumatic stress disorder, among other mental ailments, teachers said.
“Students thought they would just be without classes for a few days,” Calderon said. “What they didn’t expect was what came after the hurricane: They were left without classes, without houses, without food, the family dispersed, no Internet, no refrigerator, no power.”
She added, “All that creates a ticking time bomb in our students.”
More than 25,000 students have left the island, according to Puerto Rico’s Department of Education. But young people were fleeing even before the storm, and state education officials had planned to close hundreds of schools by the next school year.
In February, state officials proposed a widespread overhaul of the school system, including introducing charter schools and decentralizing control, leading to angry protests by teachers.
Without schools, children lack a key coping device to deal with the psychological impact of big storms, said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and president of the Children’s Health Fund, who has studied the effect of hurricanes on children.
“Children will suffer very directly and personally,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re going to pay a steep price in the future.”
Shortly after Maria struck the island on Sept. 20 and with no sign of outside help, the faculty at José Campeche began clearing the campus of storm debris and sweeping water out of classrooms.
Some students talked about witnessing their homes pulled apart by Maria, others complained of headaches and other symptoms from breathing generator exhaust.
“Some students lost family members,” Rodriguez said. “It’s difficult, as teachers, to motivate them while at home they have nothing.”
After Maria destroyed his home, Steven Vazquez, 16, became withdrawn. His mother sent him to Florida to live with an older brother for a few months until school started.
Now back, Vazquez, an 11th-grader, lives with his mother in a rented apartment with no electricity. He does homework by solar lamplight and looks forward to school each morning.
“Coming to school is the best thing I can do right now. I have someone to talk to, someone to vent with,” he said. “The best moments have been here.”