New Community School
Inspired by the success of our preschool Jaxnaq’tzb’il Xnaq’tzb’il Kynab’il Qchman and the David Jimenez Learning Center we are planning to build a NEW COMMUNITY SCHOOL that will educate the youth of Cajolá in a respectful, culturally and linguistically appropriate way from preschool through ninth grade. The school is being imagined and created by the community, as they imagine a future for young people so that 10, 15, 20 years from now there won't be such a need to migrate.
The community school will be a place where future generations can be educated, where their Mam language skills will be valued, where their historical ancestral knowledge will be valued, and where the education will be a a very high quality. The educators themselves will be coming from the community so it simultaneously provides jobs to people in the community who have managed to achieve their degrees, and it provides a sense of holistic and culturally appropriate education to the youth of Cajolá.
The school has been designed by our pro bono architect, Jennifer Cooper, based on extensive interviews and brainstorming with the current teachers. Roberto Davila, of Quetzaltenango’s Rotary Club, will be taking the design and bringing it into reality.
Although we have owned the land for quite a while, it lacked access, so that was the first problem to be solved. After lots of negotiations with the neighbors in this still somewhat rural area of Cajolá a road has been dug out.
A stakeholders group has been working on the budget. First, the capital budget:
Then, startup and operating for the first five years.
The plan is to build and open the school – which one day will have 440 students from preschool through the end of basico/middle school – in four phases.
Phase 1: 4 classrooms of the first two levels of preschool along with the essential services: administrative office, kitchen and cafeteria, an atelier (Reggio Emilia’s important “heart” or laboratory for exploration), an area for investigations, and transportation.
Phase 2: 8 additional classrooms from kindergarten through third grade, a computer lab, medical office and nurse, and additional transportation
Phase 3: 8 additional classrooms from fourth grade through first year basico/middle school, a library, music workshop, and additional transportation
Phase 4: 4 additional classrooms for basico/middle school, an additional office, waiting room, and teachers room.
