30,000 Kids in Puerto Rico Are Going Back to School Monday — in Tents
“Even though the ground isn’t shaking, sometimes you feel like it is, and you get scared.”
PENUELAS, Puerto Rico — About 30,000 students in Puerto Rico’s southern region are going back to school Monday after a two-month delay caused by January’s earthquake. But with a high chance of another quake and the schools a long way from being rebuilt, students will be starting their semester in tents.
In the wake of the Jan. 7 earthquake that devastated the island’s south and damaged 84 schools — roughly 10 percent of the island’s public schools — classes across the island were put on indefinite hold. Week by week, the Department of Education opened schools that hadn’t been damaged. But in Peñuelas, a city on the island’s southern coast where schools were severely damaged, teachers couldn’t wait for their schools to be repaired.
Odette Báez, a local school principal, and the teacher’s union set up La Escuela Pública Vive, a volunteer-led initiative run in a park that is meant to engage students while school is out of session.
“We wanted them to continue with their educational processes and at the CONTINUE READING: 30,000 Kids in Puerto Rico Are Going Back to School Monday — in Tents - VICE