Puerto Rico to close schools as enrollment plummets

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Puerto Rico is closing about a quarter of its schools due to low enrollment blamed partly on Hurricane Maria which caused widespread damage in the US territory last year.

The island's Department of Education announced that it will close 283 schools at the end of the current school year. Puerto Rico currently has more than 1,100 public schools that serve 319,000 students.

Education Secretary Julia Keleher said there would be no layoffs, with teachers and other employees being reassigned to other schools as part of a fiscal plan that aims to save the department some 150 million US dollars.

Puerto Rico has been in a prolonged economic slump and an estimated 135,000 residents have fled to the US mainland in search of better livelihoods since Hurricane Maria in September.

A house damaged by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last September. Thousands of people are still without power. /VCG photo

"We know it's a difficult and painful process," Keleher said in making the announcement. "Our children deserve the best education that we are capable of giving them taking into account Puerto Rico's fiscal reality."

Keleher said that enrollment has dropped by more than 38,700 students since just last May and that nearly half of the schools are using only 60 percent of their capacity.

Some 828 public schools will remain operational, Keleher said, and she has invited mayors in the island's 78 municipalities to propose new uses for the closed schools.

Those who oppose the closures say they worry about transportation logistics and the needs of special education children. An estimated 30 percent of Puerto Rico students receive specialized education, twice the average on the US mainland.

The announcement of closures came two weeks after Governor Ricardo Rossello signed a bill for implementing a charter schools pilot program in 10 percent of public schools and offering private school vouchers to three percent of students starting in 2019-2020 as part of an education overhaul.

Aida Diaz, president of a union that represents some 30,000 teachers, said she and others would fight the closures.

"The damage that the Secretary of Education is doing to children, youth and their parents is immeasurable," Diaz said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

Roughly a half million people have fled Puerto Rico for the US mainland in the past decade during the long recession.

The island closed 150 schools from 2010 to 2015, and last year announced it would be closing another 179 schools.

Source(s): AP