by Karol Madrigal | Feb 20, 2021
This past February 20th was the International Day of Social Justice and what better opportunity than this to dedicate a few minutes of our time to ask ourselves how involved we are when a situation seems unjust, how informed we are about the reality that many people around the world live, and the existing possibilities to combat this problem.
A primary need related to this topic begins through the understanding that our perception of what is unfair or unjust is determined by our own reality. Thus, our personal history inclines us to be more or less empathetic to these situations. Therefore, a wise process to generate awareness of the unjust conditions faced by many people would begin with the simple exercise of trying to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. Asking ourselves, “What would I feel in those living conditions or in that specific situation?” and, at the same time, understanding that each person’s reality is not necessarily the result of personal decisions or merits, not even in our own case. Not everything we get in life is because we deserve it; this applies mainly to the privileged.
With these simple questions it is possible to begin a very significant contribution to the unstoppable struggle for social justice, which is the objective of celebrating this type of world commemoration.
by Khalida Lockheed | Nov 30, 2020
This has been a challenging year for all students, but for our 12th graders, finishing internal assessment tasks and preparing for exams with the uncertainty of whether or not these exams would, in fact, take place, was particularly challenging and stressful. The wonderful news is that they were all successful in completing and handing in all their work and uploading it to IB to be examined externally by IB examiners. Furthermore, Futuro Verde was one of only three IB World schools in Costa Rica to elect to hold in-person exams, permitted by both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. After in depth investigation regarding the required health protocols and the methods and algorithms used by the IB to calculate scores when no in person exams are conducted, it was clear that it was in our students best interest to sit the exams, if possible. Worldwide, roughly 75% of IB students sat exams with only 25% electing the alternative assessment route.
On November 13th, the 12th graders finished their last exams, which were sent off via DHL to England to be distributed internationally for assessment. Final scores will be released to the students in early January. We are so proud of their achievement, no matter what their scores! Meanwhile, our 12th graders are wasting no time as they prepare university applications, find employment while they wait for university admission, and prepare for their graduation.
by Lural Ramirez | Nov 30, 2020
The global pandemic and consequent closures of schools around the world has presented an unprecedented administrative and school leadership challenge. Only time will truly tell what the most appropriate approach will turn out to have been, but at Futuro Verde we are striving to stay true to the intentions of our founders and to the mission and vision that guides us as a school. With those founding principles at the forefront, we have added in a good deal of grit, determination and creativity to arrive upon our current programming models, all of which fall within the broader Futuro Verde Project: a non-profit association with the goal to create a community education organization consisting of three parts:
- Centro Educativo Futuro Verde: Private bilingual international school which is auto-financed by monthly school fees and which extends scholarships of some kind to at least 30% of the student body.
- Educación Interactiva Futuro Verde: Outreach to area rural public schools to provide academic enrichment programs through our volunteer and service learning program.
- Centro Recreativo Futuro Verde and Centro de Atención Integral (CAI) FV: Extra-curricular program open to all students of the region providing organized activities (sports, arts, music, language, etc.) and Integrated Educational Center designed to support students ages 3 to 12 years.
Our students in Centro Educativo Futuro Verde are currently working through a blended learning model, designed to meet the needs of all students, irrespective of their specific and individual circumstances and preferences. At this time, we are not operating any part of Educación Interactiva Futuro Verde. However, you can read more about our blended learning program as a school and our complimentary and optional programming through Centro Recreativo FV and CAI FV by accessing the latest updates on our website.
Futuro Verde Website: Blended Learning
During these difficult times we are all living, we remind our entire community of our love for you all, our sincere desire that you take all necessary precautions to keep yourself and your loved ones safe, and our hope that we will be able to see one another under more “normal” circumstances very soon!
by Angie Briceño | Jul 11, 2020
Over the past few weeks, we have all gotten to know our 12th grade, and 2nd generation International Baccalaureate students, through Tuesday’s social media posts “Portraits of a Graduate”.
2020 is a very different year for the 12th graders, where what was to be a last year of memories together in class has ended up being an isolated experience in each of their homes, working towards a common goal of obtaining the International Baccalaureate degree. What we can conclude from these “portraits’ is that Futuro Verde has been not only a portal of knowledge but also a family, for this group of students. The relationships and friendships they have established at Futuro Verde will be forever carried in their hearts. Futuro Verde has been an extremely important part of their lives and they have been important to the growth and evolution of Futuro Verde. Many of them have been with us since elementary school, others joined us at the beginning of high school. We have seen them grow as students and also as people. We have watched their trajectories and we can agree that today they are citizens of the world and are ready to go out and give the best of themselves and contribute to making our world a better place. We wish them all success!
by Khalida Lockheed | Jul 6, 2020
Internal Assessments in the time of COVID
While most other students have been enjoying vacation from online schooling, our IB students have been working diligently to complete those famous IB Internal Assessment (IA) tasks for each of the 6 courses, including a TOK essay and the 4000 word Extended Essay. We have been very impressed with the high quality work being done by our students, their dedication and commitment. Our 11th grade IB cohort have only just begun this process, but are taking advantage of the online learning context to get a jump start on their IAs. 12th graders, on the other hand, are catching up, polishing and finishing up, spending hours every day in intensives with their teachers and then spending more hours working independently! They are truly making us all very proud.
This year, in particular, puts extra pressure on completing high quality IAs due to the COVID-19 epidemic and the possibility of cancelled exams. The IAs will no longer be moderated externally by the IB but will, in fact, be marked externally by the IB. Basically, what this means is that these tasks which perviously were graded by our teachers according to the standards of IB will now be graded by the IB examiners themselves wherever in the world they might be!
Reved up for External Assessments
At the close of the vacation period, 12th graders will shift their focus from completing IAs to preparing for external exams. These external exams will take place in November over the course of three weeks and are synchronous globally to all IB students taking exams in November. To help students prepare for these long written exams, we will be holding mock exams at the end of July. These mock exams will help students become familiarized with the procedure and process of the IB exams and will make visible to both student and teacher alike any areas of content needing extra study and attention.
We applaud our hardworking IB students (Shout Out!) and give our profound gratitude to our hardworking IB teachers for their dedication! IB absurdly proud.
by Lural Ramirez | May 6, 2020
As schools around the world transitioned to distance learning models in response to the novel Coronavirus pandemic, there have been milestones and moments that have been key, and as reported by the World Economic Forum on April 22, 2020, we have seen unprecedented global cooperation in response to the suffering and social-distancing efforts.
As the virus made its way to Latin America, Futuro Verde was weeks, and in some aspects years, ahead in our preparation for this required shift to online learning. The timeline below details our school’s response to this crisis and our preparedness efforts.
2014, over a period of months
Futuro Verde webmaster Khalida Lockheed spearheaded our application to Google to become a “Google For Education” school. Our application was accepted, giving us free, unlimited access to domain-specific @futuro-verde.org emails, Google For Education Apps like Gmail, Classroom, and the like. This step allowed all Futuro Verde board members, staff and students to have Futuro Verde emails and a controlled and safe shared domain for our IT needs.
How did this help us during the pandemic? All staff and students were already united under a common domain, which facilitated both more complex and collaborative online processes as well as an assurance that email server filters follow our students’ safeguarding protocols and policies.
2015, over a period of months
Futuro Verde webmaster Khalida Lockheed, in her dual role as webmaster and design manager, shifted our www.futuro-verde.org website to a content management system (WordPress), allowing for greater flexibility and collaboration.
How did this help us during the pandemic? Having the ability to quickly and easily link students and families to all of our online learning tools and resources aided in a smooth transition into a full online learning mode.
2016 school year
Secondary teachers began implementing the Google for Education Classroom app with more consistency starting in 2016. Students in upper secondary grades had become accustomed to having a parallel online platform which was initially used to document assignments and projects and to digitally receive student work for projects assigned.
This year as well, some preschool and primary teachers began to experiment with the Seesaw Platform, used then as a supplemental family communication tool.
How did this help us during the pandemic? As we shifted to online learning, Classroom and Seesaw became our main platforms for student online, at-home engagement and work. Our previous experience with both platforms made this new leap to larger use volume much more manageable and smooth.
2017-2019 school years
As Futuro Verde grew, we were able to acquire much needed, full-time support in IT and we began to purchase and systematically use several key databases, tools and programs that support student learning. Specifically, we acquired: Turnitin, a similarity detection tool to help students learn how not to plagiarize their work; EBSCO a database of reliable sources for information across a myriad of subjects and grade levels; Reading A to Z, a platform that provides independent level reading support for our pre-k and primary students; and IXL, a license we purchased for school-wide use to reinforce our students’ math abilities through an online platform personalized to their current needs and abilities and updated continually to meet their needs.
Additionally, from an administrative perspective, we purchased a school Zooom pro account in order to facilitate the confirmation of strategic university, governmental and private partnerships to benefit our students. And, perhaps most importantly, in 2019 we became a PTC member school.
How did this help us during the pandemic? Futuro Verde’s databases, tools and programs have been pillars in our instructional focus during online learning, shifting from the supplemental structures they once were to more integral and central tools for learning during our online program. Zoom Pro has allowed us to continue to effectively coordinate as staff and to maintain that high level of care and personalized attention our teachers and school are known for.
Via the listservs established by the PTC as a part of our membership status, PTC membership has meant that we have been kept at the forefront of the response by reputable international schools around the world. Furthermore, as I mentioned at the start of this article and as the World Economic Forum has confirmed, the unprecedented global cooperation between international and government schools has been invaluable to us at Futuro Verde. Our leadership team and governing body began receiving advice and updates from partner schools in China, then the rest of Asia, then the Middle East, Europe, Africa and now Latin and North America as the virus spread across the globe. The virus came to our continent last and we have benefited greatly from the lessons learned by our partner schools and we have modified resources eagerly shared with us by other schools who are weeks ahead of us in their response in order to best meet the needs of our unique student population. And please know that we have extended that same level of support in return, sharing our own best practice with other schools in the hopes that it might help them better weather this storm we are all in together.
This doesn’t mean we were perfectly prepared for everything though…
In the one day we took for teacher training on March 17th before immediately moving to online learning with students, we hurriedly got up to speed on Google Hangouts, for daily student check-in and accessibility for office hours with teachers throughout the day. We had always had access to this App as a part of our “Google For Education” status, but our first real use of the app coincided with the crisis. Luckily our amazing teachers are dedicated learners themselves and so they dove into this new challenge, and the others that have come, as we continue to innovate our approach and program as the weeks go by.
I sincerely hope this look back in time related to preparedness has helped further contextualize the value of investing in a high quality education for your child. Effective, coordinated efforts require time, in this case years, and they also require vision, commitment and determination. As Head of School, I am deeply appreciative for our fantastic staff who have contributed to our readiness for online learning, to our international school partners for their generosity and time, and, most importantly to our students and their families for their commitment to progressive, high-quality and future minded education on the Nicoya peninsula!
For more information on our specific programming, please visit our website which houses specific information and resources related to our online and distance learning program. And, stay tuned for new response to the crisis yet to come! The latest updates from our partner schools outside of Latin and North America is that most countries and schools are beginning to transition back to on-campus learning, with modifications and precautions new to all. So, if the pattern of this global crisis stays true, a whole new challenge awaits our community soon when Latin and North America also begin to transition back! If you know us well, you know we have been preparing for that for weeks now already…
