2020, A Challenge for the Country's Public Education

This article was originally published on May 9, 2020

Puerto Rico's education has not been the same since the earthquakes of January 6 and 7 that shook the island, and the cancellation of on-campus classes due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

According to Carlos I. Pesquera, head of the Interagency Committee for the Inspection of Schools (CIEE), all the schools found unsuitable to re-open were in the south, where the earthquakes did the most damage, after having completed structural inspections of all the schools on the island.

On the other hand, less than two months after the quake that affected the country, on March 15, the Secretary of Education, Eligio Hernández Pérez, reported that due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, on-campus classes were canceled in all public schools, as Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced had ordered according to Executive Order 2020-023.

He also issued an official statement in which the continuation of remote classes would be guaranteed, and that it was mandatory for teachers to send work home. The scope of this guideline is contained in the memorandum "Academic Options and Alternatives for Students of the Education System Due to the Closure of March 16-30, 2020."

However, given the imminent increase in the spread of the virus, the quarantine was extended and even today, May 4, classes have remained suspended.

The secretary. Hernández said in a press release on April 12 that, in the face of the emergency caused by COVID-19, the modality of online courses will continue and that the current semester will end virtually.

However, on April 17, in an interview by Metro newspaper, the secretary said that the graduations will take place.

"If we had to do the graduations as if it were a drive-through, we'll do them," Hernandez said.

Many schools were affected because they suffered structural damages after the earthquake, and went for more than a month without being able to give any classes, not to mention being able to teach at normal hours.

After several weeks without being able to teach their students, several schools began their administrative work on school campuses in the week of February 10, and then that same week they began to receive their students.

Some teachers mentioned that their schools suffered serious damage to their schools, not counting the damage they had suffered before the earthquake due to poor maintenance and the passage of Hurricane Maria three years ago.

A teacher at Benjamin Harrison Vocational High School in Cayey, who wanted to be identified as Alan, said, "There was a classroom on the main campus that they closed with yellow tape, and after two weeks they put a fence to prevent students from entering, but the damage is still there," he also added that "In the building next to the basketball court, they completely closed the entire second floor, there were a lot of cracks and a lot of problems."

"Due to lack of maintenance, the school already had problems with the roofs, the drywall is falling off and there's exposed metal rods," said Lorena, an English teacher at the Rafael Rexach Second Unit School in Rio Grande who asked to remain anonymous.

Education at a Distance

Due to situations out of their control, several teachers have been forced to resort to other different resources to be able to impart tasks and knowledge to their students, which has been a frustrating experience for several teachers due to the lack of resources or equipment for both teachers and students.

"It's been a bit uphill, due to the fact that it was based on the premise that everyone had access to the internet, and it is not the reality of all students and fellow teachers in the country," explained Manuel Erazo Maldonado, a history teacher at the Antonio Rivera Second Unit School in Bayamón.

"None of us were prepared for that change. I've never taken an online class workshop, the most I have done have been master's and doctoral level classes. If it weren't for that and our own intuition, we wouldn't know how to deal like this online. I'm sure there are a lot of teachers who weren't prepared for that," Alan said.

According to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau from 2013 to 2017, the distribution of electronic equipment and internet service was mostly concentrated in the metropolitan area and eastern coastal areas, with 70% of households with internet service and more than 70% of households with some type of computer.

Outside the metro area, only the towns of Juana Díaz and Villalba have more than 60% of the population with internet access, while 38 municipalities have less than 50% of the population having access to the internet or some type of computer.

These statistics show how weak the infrastructure is on most of the island for online classes, leading to several students not having access to their classes or external communication with peers or teachers.

"... there are a lot of students who get lost. Even right now, three weeks after the quarantine began, students are still showing up asking what is due and what's been done in class," Alan said.

Faced with these situations due to lack of equipment, Corinne, a retired teacher from Cayey and mother of two students, recounted "... since we're a low-income family, we don't have modern equipment and we don't have the money to afford modern equipment, so my son is working with a mobile phone provided by the government... My son has that phone, and on that phone you can't install certain applications because the processor can't work those modern applications, let alone jobs that involve Word, accessing virtual classes and video calls, it's very complicated."

Several teachers and students have commented on the quality of online education, "... We're not imparting knowledge, we're just assigning them work. The most that can be done is that they watch a video on YouTube to see if it explains it better than me. I am not imparting knowledge, I am imparting tasks. When we're teaching in the classroom, they do things to learn to do it, because not everything that is given in the classroom is for points, "said Alan.

A student at the Lysander Borrero Terry school in Villalba stated, "Reading a Wikipedia page is not the same as taking a class, sometimes they give exams without the material, I am not learning what I should."

On April 24, the secretary of the Department of Education (DE) announced that every student in the public education system would pass the grade due to the situations that have affected the country, and that the school semester would end on May 8.

Faced with this new reality, some teachers feel disallowed, they understand that students have not learned anything.

"I feel demoralized and disallowed, not because I believe that children should be penalized for this situation, but there are cases and there are cases," said Lorena, an English teacher in Rio Grande.

There are also teachers who feel that their students have failed to learn or grasp the proper material this semester, and fear that students will fail in the next school year.

"They didn't take classes, so they're going to pass them without having the necessary knowledge. I dislike that they're not learning anything, and I'm disgusted that we're going to have to deal with it next year," said Alan, an English teacher at Cayey.

"Many students are going to pass without having the knowledge about the subject they are taking, I understand that there are going to be many gaps in courses where there is continuity," Manuel said. "The student who is passed by obligation is going to have those loopholes and that's going to end in a possible failure."