by Lural Ramirez | Nov 3, 2019
Over the course of this year I have been sharing with you reflections on our school’s core values. My article in September explored the fourth of five core school values, “Futuro Verde: We Take the Best of our Diversity to Live in Harmony”. Today, I will be sharing reflections on our fifth and final core school value.
Futuro Verde: We Grow and Learn in Harmony with Nature
With a name like Futuro Verde, this final core school value might be the most obvious one to pop into your mind! Futuro Verde has green in its name but most importantly we are truly ‘green’ in our hearts- not perfect in our ecological footprint but certainly striving and working hard to be the model of what green, sustainable, harmonious living with nature can be like. From one year to the next our commitment strengthens and grows and here is a quick sampling of how we grow and learn in harmony with nature at Futuro Verde:
Purpose-built new classroom construction:
Our board of directors and leadership team has purposefully committed to our new construction, regular education classrooms having half walls, no doors and no traditional windows. Why, you might ask? Because we are located in the middle of the jungle and we want our students to feel connected to that beautiful jungle each and every day as they learn and grow! The design also has a practical purpose as the air flow keeps the space cool and lets moisture in and out as needed.
A full permaculture campus is in the works:
Through a long-standing collaboration with our fiscal sponsor, Green Wave, we are dedicated to the development of a campus wide alignment to permaculture practices and restoration of our green spaces. This design includes development that takes the land, flow of air and water and the needs of the community into consideration before ground is broken and building and development begins. As our Green Wave consultant is prone to say “the problem is the solution!”. This beautiful mindset shift is an inspiring guide post as we learn and grow in this area.
School-wide environmental campaigns:
Most of our community already knows about our trimester beach clean-ups which are a dependable and welcome service project our students participate in three times per year at a range of our local beaches. But, you may not have known about the on-site, open to the community recycling center we have, or the compost bins run by our students? Perhaps you’ve never heard of our program to support wild animals staying wild or our farm to table goals through our student-developed garden? Our environmental campaigns are many, are led by our environmental education teachers and our students at every grade level and are supported by each and every school teacher, staff member and community member who joins us in this strong commitment to the environment!
One of our newer aspects as a school when we consider the importance of living in harmony in nature is serving as an advocate for our beloved mother Earth! As the years have passed, as our school has grown and as our level of academic rigor has continued to improve, our students are increasingly working as activists and advocates for policy change, awareness campaigns and social and political influence regarding environmental and nature related topics. As a school we also have an ongoing commitment to, and work intentionally with, the Global Goals, especially in the sense of raising awareness among our students and encouraging their advocacy and activism related to a variety of different areas related to sustainability within the Global Goals framework, to include: education, citizenship, equality, environment and health.
We encourage our entire school and greater community to continue to support our school’s commitment to a life filled with connection to nature and a determination to seek a harmonious existence with the nature in our lives and a dedication to ongoing development, growth and learning from each of us every day as we strive to best support the health and longevity of our Earth!
by Stuart Millar, IB coordinator | Nov 1, 2019
October is a busy month in the International Baccalaureate calendar for schools on a November exam schedule such as Futuro Verde. Grades for internal evaluations have to be submitted, along with the required supporting materials. Internal evaluations come in different forms: individual orals about works of literature; interactive or group orals; research projects in Business Management, Biology, and Math; the Visual Arts exhibition; and musical creating and performing. This year our students have composed music, performed, exhibited their works of art and undertaken research projects about the correlation between sports activity and academic achievement, whether a local hotel should target the holistic wellness segment of the hospitality industry, and to determine if there is a correlation between cases of Tuberculosis and the Human Development Index (HDI) in Europe. Internal evaluations are assessed by Futuro Verde teachers according to IB criteria, with samples of assessed student work being sent to the IB organization for moderation. This is how the IB organization assures that students from different schools are assessed as fairly and equally as possible.
The variety of projects that our students undertake and the support they receive is in no small part due to the qualifications, expertise, and experience of our teachers at Futuro Verde. This is just one of the key strengths and unique selling points of Futuro Verde compared to other institutions in the area. Our teachers are specialists, all of them possessing degrees in their areas of knowledge, be those in early childhood education, primary education, special education, science, math, business, and languages, etc. Many hold advanced degrees, sometimes in more than one area of specialty, and a high proportion has earned masters degrees in education. Add to that the experience they bring from all over the world and our students have a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw from.
Our teachers are authentic lifelong learners and Futuro Verde supports all of them to be so. IB requires that teachers giving instruction in diploma program subjects have attended Category 1 workshops, which are either face-to-face or online. Going one step further, we have just registered our teachers for multiple advanced Category 2 and 3 workshops which will take place over the next six months. In September we were visited by Dr. Mia Sosa-Provencio and her team from the University of New Mexico (USA) as they worked with all our teachers from preschool to 12th grade to develop collaborative classroom strategies featuring Latin American narratives of struggle and resilience amid structural oppression. Every year we hold the Bilingual Holistic Sustainable Educational Conference and this year we were lucky enough to have David Rogers, Executive Director for Dual Language Education of New Mexico, as our keynote speaker. The success of BHS this year led to David inviting and sponsoring our teachers, by waiving the registration fee, to attend La Cosecha conference in New Mexico, USA. We are excited about all that our attendees are going to learn and bring back with them!
by Rico Reolon | Oct 30, 2019
The Futuro Verde educational project has always been a labor of love for our board members! Having been on the board from the beginning and having overseen all of the construction, remodeling and development projects our school has taken on, I can attest to the hard work and concerted effort facilities development has been at our small, community school.
The positive news is that our facilities continue to improve each year and this has been the product of the support of school families, generous external donors and the careful planning and quick initiative of Futuro Verde leadership team and board members looking to act quickly and in favor of ongoing development, growth and improvement.
Some highlights from our governing body and from my tenure as board president include:
Overcoming Development Setbacks- From a lack of funding, to a lack of consistent governmental support, to the delay of planned projects in order to address urgent needs, our development has not been a continual line of success. But, through it all, I am proud to say that our board of directors has worked together to problem solve, address urgent issues and to work diligently toward the best facilities we can achieve at any given time.
Strategic Plan- I am proud to say that our board has followed a strategic plan for years now. This plan has focused the board’s efforts and ensured that we continue to seek development of our student population and facilities with intention and drive. A new, full day board retreat scheduled for November 9th will have us reviewing and updating our current strategic plan.
Leadership and Guidance- The board of directors takes its responsibility of leadership and governance seriously and this includes a sustained focus on the support and counsel of our fantastic school leadership team as they strive to ensure that our programs develop in a measured way that matches our ability to improve and build new and needed facilities. The positive relationship we have sustained with the school leadership team has allowed for courageous conversations and collegial interactions in which the well-being of our students and our school stay at the forefront of our decision-making.
Septic System Process- One of our most recent achievements has been a major improvement to our septic system, which will improve our waste water management school wide. We are proud to be collaborating with Ecotanks in the installation of a system that fully treats our waste water and releases into the environment waste that is 100% potable (although Futuro Verde will use this water only for watering purposes, not for drinking). As our student population grows and our facilities multiply, adequate waste water treatment has become a pressing and urgent need we are thrilled to have solved at this time.
Future projects:
As many of you know there are many projects yet to come:
- construction of our multi-use sports court
- construction of new, permanent classrooms to replace our remaining temporary buildings
- remodeling and expansion of our administrative building
- completion of our staff parking lot and remodel of our visitor lot to make arrival and dismissal safer and more efficient
