logo logo
Donate
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Social Justice
    • Racial Justice
    • Climate Justice
    • Disability Justice
    • Economic Justice
    • Health Justice
    • Immigration
    • LGBTQ+
  • Civic News
  • Nonprofit Leadership
    • Board Governance
    • Equity-Centered Management
    • Finances
    • Fundraising
    • Human Resources
    • Organizational Culture
    • Philanthropy
    • Power Dynamics
    • Strategic Planning
    • Technology
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Leading Edge Membership
  • Newsletters
  • Webinars

Puerto Rican Communities Move to Reclaim Abandoned Former Schools

Skip Lockwood
May 16, 2019

May 12, 2019; Truthout

Recognizing the value of Puerto Rico’s many abandoned educational facilities, communities like San Salvador and Santurce are reclaiming schools to provide social and health services or to establish community centers. However, the vast majority of the closed schools are vacant, and the government has not shared plans for the disposition of these community assets.

The latest round of school closures—260, or 24 percent of the schools for the 2018–2019 academic year—stem in part from Puerto Rico’s long-running financial crisis and a significant reduction in the number of school-age children. Hurricanes Irma and Maria exacerbated the situation by wreaking tremendous physical destruction and encouraging migration away from the island. Of course, as Ankur Singh explains in Truthout, the school closures were also very much politically motivated.

As Singh points out, in 2016, the US Congress voted for PROMESA (the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act), which allowed Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy but subjected it to a Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico to manage debt payments. The board, in turn, has imposed austerity on the island.

“School closures,” Singh notes, “were a part of US-imposed austerity measures to reduce spending even before the hurricane.” Austerity measures have prompted massive protests from Puerto Rican teachers, students, and their parents, as well as a wide range of community-based efforts to create a more democratic economy.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Among these organizing efforts are efforts to make the shuttered schools into community centers. As Tara Rodríguez-Besosa, a local community organizer with El Departamento de la Comida, speaking to Truthout.org, explains, in her town, what the school closure did was “create in the center of town a ghost situation. Now, she hopes that it will at least be repurposed as “a community center and refuge if another storm comes.”

Similarly, in the San Juan neighborhood of Santurce, volunteers are cleaning and caring for Escuela Pedro G. Goyco in San Juan.” Lydia Platón, a volunteer notes, “We’re trying to relive something that our street has lost,” by transforming the closed school into a community arts and culture space.

Without a territorial plan to dispose of the hundreds of vacant schools, neighborhood efforts to assume ownership of the facilities are complicated, as each community must navigate its way through the bureaucracy individually. The process should be straightforward, and there are successful models, such as Escuela Parcelas Suarez, a school in Loíza that has been running a community center out of a former school for the last seven years. As NPQ’s Cyndi Suarez notes, Loíza is the blackest and poorest municipality in Puerto Rico, but also a community with a strong arts tradition that is organizing itself to develop an arts corridor in its region.

Like community residents in Puerto Rico, researchers at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York view the vacant schools as community assets. Their May 2019 research brief, Population Decline and School Closure in Puerto Rico, recommends an array of valuable repurposings of the closed facilities:

If these facilities cannot be devoted to schools or other educational purposes, such as adult training or distance learning facilities, we recommend that priority be given to the creation of multi-purpose community centers targeting special needs population such as the elderly or for targeted economic development programs in rural areas. Multi-purpose community centers may offer much-needed services to a growing aging population, especially in more isolated rural areas, and serve as emergency facilities. Community centers can be equipped with alternative energy sources, communications equipment, medical supplies and other necessities in case of emergencies and to serve as shelters.

For neighborhoods across Puerto Rico, transitioning shuttered schools to community centers or other public assets is one way that community members are taking charge of the economy and refusing to let central government austerity efforts define who they are.—Skip Lockwood

About the author
Skip Lockwood

Skip has more than 20 years of experience building and managing effective and efficient nonprofit organizations as well as five years as an executive at a for-profit company and six years as an independent political consultant. His proudest achievement was transforming a nearly bankrupt cancer nonprofit into an award-winning, multi-million dollar organization that helped to save lives. Currently, he owns and operates QL3 Strategies to provide nonprofits with the technical, ethical, strategic, and operational expertise they need to fulfill their missions.

More about: Nonprofit NewsPolicyPuerto Rico

Our Voices Are Our Power.

Journalism, nonprofits, and multiracial democracy are under attack. At NPQ, we fight back by sharing stories and essential insights from nonprofit leaders and workers—and we pay every contributor.

Can you help us protect nonprofit voices?

Your support keeps truth alive when it matters most.
Every single dollar makes a difference.

Donate now
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

You might also like
New York and Other States Move to Fix Nonprofit Contracting Delays
Lauren Girardin
Trump Budget Bill Spells Trouble for Nonprofits
Isaiah Thompson
How Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” Hurts Youth Mental Health
Megan Kerns
Holding the Line for LGBTQ+ Youth: Community, Care, and Resistance
Deepa Iyer
Trump Moves to Gut Low-Income Energy Assistance as Summer Heat Descends and Electricity Prices Rise
Conor Harrison, Elena Louder, Nikki Luke and Shelley Welton
“Advocacy Works”: Nonprofit Status-Stripping Measure Dropped from Republican Budget
Isaiah Thompson

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
July 24th, 2:00 pm ET

Organizing in Divided Times

The Relational Infrastructure We Need to Protect Democracy

Register
Group Created with Sketch.
September 24th-25th, 2:00 pm ET

Advanced QuickBooks for Nonprofits

Expert Guidance for Experienced QuickBooks Users

Register

    
You might also like
An aerial view of New York City buildings during the daytime.
New York and Other States Move to Fix Nonprofit Contracting...
Lauren Girardin
US Capitol Building
Trump Budget Bill Spells Trouble for Nonprofits
Isaiah Thompson
Four young people stand in a parking lot, looking at the sunset. There are mountains and palm trees in the distance.
How Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” Hurts Youth Mental...
Megan Kerns

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright
  • Donate
  • Editorial Policy
  • Funders
  • Submissions

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.