by Lural Ramirez | Jan 18, 2019
Welcome to the 2019 school year! On behalf of the Futuro Verde board of directors, our amazing team of teachers, our dedicated leadership team and our incredible support and auxiliary staff we welcome you to this new school year and thank you for joining us on this educational journey at our loving, IB World School!
Below you will find important details as you help your student(s) have the best beginning of the year possible!
School Supply Lists: Click the link below for access to our 2019 school supply lists! Thank you for fulfilling your child’s full supply list!
Supply List
Uniform policy: Please find below our school uniform policy, which has no changes from last year to this year. Uniforms are in stock and for sale at the school office. A reminder that uniform shirts have a cost of: ₡8,000 and PE uniforms (shirt and shorts) have a cost of: ₡12,500
2019 FV Uniform
2019 Student/Parent Handbook: Click the link below to read our updated 2019 school handbook! There are important policies in the handbook regarding topics including absences, curriculum, discipline policies and more. Please assure you read the handbook in full and review it with your child. Thank you!
School Handbook 2019
Get involved!: We are starting a formal FV Parent’s Commission for the first time this year! Are you a parent interested in becoming more involved with the school? Do you love helping with school events and fundraisers? Are you interested in helping make fun and exciting things happen at Futuro Verde? Well, then our FV Parent’s Commission might be just the group for you! Click on the link below to indicate your interest to get involved and our FV Parent’s Commission organizers will be in touch!
FV Parents Commission
by Stuart Millar, IB coordinator | Nov 21, 2018
We are looking forward to another first as we celebrate a decade of Futuro Verde, our first year of twelfth grade! Some of the students might not be sure why that is something to celebrate, but one of the best things for the teachers and staff is that we don’t have to say goodbye to the students just yet! They have another year to prepare themselves for university or whatever comes next, and our younger students have another year to benefit from their maturity and learn from the good examples they set.
Twelfth grade means more than just a change for the students who normally would have graduated after their national exams at the end of 11th grade. This progress positively impacts our enrollment, there will be some exciting changes for some our teachers and administrators, and we will be examining how to make the most effective use of our learning spaces.
This is an exciting new chapter in Futuro Verde’s history and we look forward to keeping you informed about the progress of our seniors throughout the year.
by Angie Briceño | Nov 20, 2018
We come to the end of one more school year and we finished very successfully, some go others come but the enthusiasm is preserved.
We are very happy to confirm new families that join Futuro Verde during the next school year 2019. FV has grown a lot in the last 10 years since its foundation, in such a way that families who come to FV from various parts of Costa Rica and the world have decided to change their entire lives so that their children can receive a quality education.
With each passing year we experience important changes in our annual enrollment and you can see these changes in the classes. For the 2019 school year, we are very happy to confirm that we have groups that have reached their limit of 20 students per group.
All this was possible thanks to the enrollment process that has been improving year after year, and for this reason, we want to thank all the families that have collaborated with the flexibility towards these changes to have better results which have helped improve the school.
by David Brookshire, MPH/ School Counselor & Special Education Case Manager | Nov 18, 2018
With a holistic approach to learning and growth, it’s often important to support the emotional needs of children as they go through different ages and stages of life. At Futuro Verde we emphasize character education, social emotional learning, and access to counseling as ways to support the unique needs of every student. This allows every student to acquire emotional intelligence in addition to academic skills. As a result of this approach, students become self-aware individuals able to make responsible decisions, resolve conflicts, and manage their emotions.
Sometimes, as problems arise, children may need additional support as they tackle some of life’s challenges. This is where counseling can be very beneficial. Building a rapport with a neutral counselor, can allow children to open up about what’s troubling them. Through conversation and activities, this can help them identify and express emotions as they broaden their perspective through confiding in a counselor. This is very helpful in reducing stress, increasing self esteem, and building healthy relationships.
There are also ways for parents to support social emotional learning and growth at home. Being a good listener, for example, is an easy way to build this core competency in our children. This helps them become good listeners themselves, especially when it is modeled for them. Modeling is an excellent way to support emotional development because our choices and actions have a huge impact on our children. Be conscious about what values you hold as a family and carefully making choices aligned with those values is an excellent way to reinforce learning. Nurturing self esteem, giving age appropriate choices, and showing appreciation are also excellent ways to develop character at home.
Whether at home, through character education and social emotional learning our with the help of a counselor, it takes a village as we support every child as they learn and develop. Challenges are inevitable but with healthy coping skills, self esteem, and additional support when needed, our students are becoming self-aware, resilient individuals as they continue to learn how to engage with those around them in meaningful ways.
by Lural Ramirez | Nov 17, 2018
At Futuro Verde we look forward to each new school year because the start of a new year brings with it opportunities to implement new and improved curricular plans! Here is a short summary of some exciting changes coming to our curricular offering:
World Languages: Our ever-expanding additional languages program in secondary is taking new shape in 2019! Eight different teachers will be collaborating together for this class and the structure will bring together multiple languages to be learned and explored (Classical Languages, French, Translation Studies and more!). The class will also provide for a time for students in need to receive additional support in their development of either English or Spanish, if they are newer to either of the languages. With a self-study, student-directed component to the World Languages course development, this new class is a perfect fit for our inquisitive secondary students!
Reaching that 50-50 English/Spanish goal in secondary!: New staffing choices and curricular decisions in 2019 are allowing for us to finally achieve a more perfect balance between English and Spanish instruction in the middle and high school grades. A more ideally balanced linguistic program makes for more well-developed language in both Spanish and English!
We finally add in 12th grade!!: 2019 starts with a real bang with 12th graders joining our preschool through 11th grade campus for the first time. We are immensely excited and proud to take this important step as a school! 12th grade also brings the final year of a two-year program of study for our first generation of International Baccalaureate (IB) graduates! This first group of 12th graders will take their final exams in November 2019 and, depending on their exam results, can qualify for two diplomas simultaneously: MEP bachillerato and the Bilingual IB Diploma.
Improved pool rental facilities and a brand new multi-use sports court!: 2019 marks a year of huge gains in sports programming within the Futuro Verde curriculum. We are working out the final details for the agreement with the privately owned, semi-Olympic pool facility directly across the street from Futuro Verde and construction will be complete before the new school year on our very own multi-use sports court facility located right on our campus!
College Counseling starting in 7th grade: We know that Futuro Verde is many things, to many people! Two of the aspects of our school that we are the most proud of combine next year for a new class for our 7th through 12th graders- College Counseling. Students and families love how we provide personalized and loving attention to all our students and most families choose our school because of the academic rigor and opportunity for a bright post-secondary future. The college counseling class will be co-taught by two Futuro Verde teachers whom have university and post-secondary experience in Costa Rica, Europe, Africa and the United States and they are excited to support our students in identifying their interests and passions, exploring university options or helping students to find their path in life.
Art/music/PE plan: Two big changes are coming to three of the biggest contributors to our holistic programming at Futuro Verde:
- In the early grades, we have hired a new specialist generalist who is tasked to teach Physical Education, Music and Art to our students grades preschool through 4th grade. All swimming classes will still be taught by Alejandro Ramirez, our certified swim instructor, with assistance from our new specialist generalist, Katie Reading.
- In the middle school years students will have a slight modification in their art and music classes, in that they will end each school year with a class that will be a collaborative performance and production class between the art and music classes. Students will be putting theory into practice in this collaborative performance and production class and we can’t wait to see their creativity applied to a real context!
As you can see, the curricular offering is just getting better and better in 2019 at Futuro Verde!
by Angie Briceño | Nov 16, 2018
Getting ready for the 2019 school year means getting ready for the scholarship process 2019 too.
The scholarships granted by Futuro Verde are subject to the money collected year after year for the scholarship fund. It is for this reason also that has been of utmost importance the improvement of processes to this day.
This year we had a successful scholarship process and we hope that the upcoming years will be just as successful. For this we will follow the same system we use for this school year:
1. Contact with the social worker in San José who will come to the area to work in the cases
2. Deliver to the families the package of documents necessary to apply for the scholarships, which must be submitted during the established period.
3. Families must pay the fee for the case study to the social worker
4. The social worker begins with the study of each case
5. Home visits are made if necessary
6. The social worker submits scholarship reports and recommendations
7. Families receive approved or unapproved reports and if necessary, they must sign the scholarship contract
It is important to remember that the scholarship process is an ANNUAL process as well as being a privilege granted by the educational center, for which it is the obligation of the families that have a scholarship to apply year after year to compete for the scholarship.
Stay tuned for more information about the 2019 scholarship process!
