Our last school visit in Morocco took us to the Rabat American School. Principal Sean Goudie was a most welcoming and gracious host. The school is brand new and located in a spacious campus by the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. They accommodate 450 pre-k to 12th grade students who come from 44 different countries. The majority, however, are American and Moroccan.
This year’s AASA International Seminar is special. The delegation includes current AASA President Deb Kerr, President-elect Kristi Sandvik and Past-presidents Pat Neudecker, Amy Sichel and Gail Pletnick.
The Berberes are the oldest inhabitants of Morocco. Their language, along with Arabic, is the official language of the country.
We visited the Kchait Primary School in the outskirts of Ait-Ben-Haddou. We traveled across the High Atlas Mountains, the highest point in Morocco, to get there.
Every year at this time, the AASA International Seminar takes superintendents and other interested parties to other parts of the world. The intent is to learn about the educational systems and cultures in the places we visit. These trips never fail to make an impression on the participants.
This year’s trip to Morocco is no exception. It’s an hour bus ride through arid, desolate land to our first school visit to a tribal school in the remote hills outside of Marrakech. A brown landscape is sprinkled with the occasional green of scrub vegetation.
We learn from our guide that the school is very excited about our visit and that they have been preparing for it for days. This will not be a typical school visit. We are in a remote area that is home to one of the many isolated tribes that have occupied the territory for hundreds of years.
This year, the AASA International Seminar takes us to Morocco. The education system here provides free schooling that includes six years of a primary education, three years of middle and intermediate schooling and three years of secondary. School attendance is compulsory up to the age of 13. The system focuses on erasing illiteracy and the languages of instruction are Arabic and French. Pre-primary programs are also available to children of ages 4-6.
This year’s Delegation includes 22 participants. AASA President Deb Kerr and AASA President-elect Kristi Sandvik are part of the group along with three AASA Past-Presidents. Our first school visit was to the Ecole Lhadchat, a tribal school outside the city of Merrakech. It is a school of 110 students at the primary level. The school operates a daily split session with half of them attending in the morning and the other half in the afternoon.
Continue readingThis year’s AASA International Seminar took our group of superintendents to Ecuador. This was not our first journey to South America and we found education in Ecuador to be very similar to what we have seen in Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Chile.
AASA President Chris Gaines and Executive Director Dan Domenech with children from the Milenio School in Guano, Ecuador.
Like their neighbors, Ecuador’s public schools serve primarily the poor while the middle class and up tend to send their children to private schools. We visited two such schools, the American International School in Quito and the Vigotsky School in Riobamba.
The International school is truly a model of outstanding education. Catering to the children of American diplomats and those that can afford the $18,000 per-year tuition, the school offers programs to infants through high school. We were very impressed by the college-like campus and the quality of the teachers and administrators.
A guest blog post by Amy Sichel and Gladys Cruz
Today, we began our school visits at the Unidad Educativa del Milenio GUANO, a Pre-K to high school, housed in a four-and-a-half year-old government-built facility. The school has an enrollment of 630 students who previously attended seven different smaller schools now consolidated into one new building.
The children attend school from September 4 through July 10 and live in the area of Guano. Some children are bused to school.
As superintendents from across the U.S., we appreciate the opportunity to see the value placed on education in other countries. Clearly, other countries often aspire to provide a mandatory education for all, as we do.
A guest post by Gladys Cruz
I ventured to visit schools on a hot sunny morning on the island. Not knowing if I would be given entrance to the schools, I decided to take the risk and was joined by David Woolly, the superintendent of the Alma School District in Alma, Ark.
Given the lure around Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands, I was immediately attracted to visiting the Carlos Darwin School. Upon arrival, a native from Ecuador greeted us.
A guest post by AASA Past President Amy Sichel
The AASA International Seminar is always a meaningful experience for superintendents. During this year’s trip, we are learning about the culture and history of Ecuador, which includes the opportunity to visit schools. The value added is traveling with fellow superintendents from across our country, making connections and learning from each other.
Superintendents on the AASA International Seminar listen to a presentation at the American International School in Quito, Ecuador.
Our first school visit was to Academia Cotopaxi, an American International School, educating children from 12-months-old to high school. This school has a beautiful campus and is located in Ecuador’s capital city of Quito. The Academia is a private, English-based international school. The parents of many of the children who attend are stationed in Quito either through the embassy or are U.S. government officials. The children come from 38 different countries with a total enrollment of 850. Fifty-eight percent of the students are international, 42 percent are from Ecuador and 22 percent are from North America. The tuition is $18,000 per student.
AASA Executive Director, Dan Domenech, with Principal Gretta Mendez at the Cerro Alegre school.
La Fortuna, Costa Rica – Gretta Mendez was assigned to become the principal teacher of the one-room Alegre (Happy Hill) School three years ago. Unless you know where you are going, you would never find it. First of all, it’s not a school building. It’s a small Catholic Church in the mountains of Chachagua. The local priest allows Gretta to use the church as a school. There is an empty lot next to the church that the government purchased to build a school but that seems to be years away.
Most of the children who attend Cerro Alegre come from Nicaraguan families that are in Costa Rica illegally. There is an existing school that the children could attend but it’s so far from their homes that most of them would not go to school at all. While visiting Cerro Alegre the children regaled their AASA visitors with native dances and songs and then invited their guests to do the Hokey Pokey.
Typical of Costa Rican schools, the children are divided into morning and afternoon sessions each lasting about four hours. Gretta teaches both sessions.
The school is very much in need of resources and the AASA guests were eager to help out with donations and promises to send pencils, notebooks and furniture.
It’s a tough assignment and Gretta confesses that many a day she considers leaving Cerro Alegre to go teach in a conventional school, but then she looks at the faces of her children and she knows she will never abandon them. She knows that they would never travel the distance it would take to go to the school in town. She knows that many of the undocumented parents would not risk sending their kids to the regular school.
So Gretta stays and makes the most of it with the contributions she receives, the borrowed space from the local priest and the most beautiful smiles from the children she loves and teaches.
Dan is blogging throughout the AASA International Seminar, which is taking place in Costa Rica.