This Is How Puerto Rico’s Government Plans to Repair Damaged Schools

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said that he plans to to repair, remodel or expand over 500 schools, as well as build new facilities. Schools in the southern area of the island that were affected by the 2020 earthquakes will take priority.

Puerto Rico has a historic allocation of funds that will allow it to rebuild school buildings that were affected by Hurricane María in 2017 and a series of earthquakes in 2020.

The island’s Department of Education has more than $3 billion, which includes the nearly $2.3 billion allocated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after Hurricane María, an additional $185.3 million that was allocated after the earthquakes, and millions from other federal funds, including the American Rescue Plan.

Gov. Pierluisi said that he plans to repair 493 schools, remodel 201, and expand 37 campuses. In addition, he plans to build 55 new schools, of which 46 will be existing schools that will be torn down and rebuilt. The plan also includes repair work on 423 schools that have the short column model, which makes them vulnerable to earthquakes. The government anticipates that 155 of these will be finished by February.

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Pierluisi said that they will give priority to schools in the southern area of the island that were the most affected by the 2020 earthquakes. Work on those schools began last summer.

In the past few weeks, there has been unease in the school community after the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) published a leaked list from the Department of Education that gave details of a plan to possibly close 83 schools.

The governor denied that there are plans to close schools. He did say that there are some schools that are in poor condition and will need to be closed during construction, so students will have to be moved to another campus. Pierluisi said that doesn’t mean those schools will close permanently.