Day 4 - Visiting the Public School

 Day 4 at Colegio Monterrey, and we had the opportunity to sneak away for the morning and visit the neighboring public school. After having worked at the private school all week with its (relative) abundant resources and facility, it was interesting to see the public school down the street. In Costa Rica, the English language opens many doors for employment and at Colegio Monterrey, students begin taking English classes in kindergarten. By high school, science classes are in English, and most students are quite fluent. In public schools, though, with limited resources, students aren't able to take as many classes, and their foreign language classes are limited as well. While at Colegio Monterrey, school runs from 7:30-3:00pm, at the public school, in order to maximize the facility, students come from 7:00-11, then another group comes in from 11-3:00, then in the afternoons from 3-6, the building is open for older students who have fallen behind. It's actually quite impressive the way they have the schedule worked.

The principal of the public school was a friend of Rebekah (Don Alfredo's assistant at Colegio Monterrey) and showed us around her school. It was encouraging to hear the work they are doing with students with disabilities despite the budget difficulties. When Rebekah came to pick us up, the principal told us the story of how they are connected with Colegio Monterrey. She told us the story of a little girl at their school who was orphaned suddenly (losing both parents). The future looked bleak for this girl, but Colegio Monterrey stepped in and "adopted" the girl giving her a full scholarship. The principal started to tear up a bit when she spoke of how this girl's future path changed through Colegio Monterrey and the possibilities that would open to her through her education there. She was quite grateful that the work being done at Colegio Monterrey. It was pretty encouraging to hear as we shared more with Don Alfredo. Around 16 percent of the students at Monterrey are on full scholarship like the orphaned girl. Kids from difficult backgrounds, generational poverty. It was incredible to think that through Monterrey, for many of these students, it meant ending the cycle of generational poverty. These students would graduate with an education that would almost guarantee gainful employment. It was encouraging to see the impact this school was having in the community and to think that we were able to help be part of that.