[FACT CHECK] Jenniffer González: “The reality is that today, after the earthquakes in southern Puerto Rico, none of the schools have been brought up to proper conditions”

Verdict: True, but...

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Resident Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate for the New Progressive Party (PNP), Jenniffer González, claimed during the first televised debate of candidates for the executive position that none of the schools in the southern part of Puerto Rico affected by the 2020 earthquakes had been made suitable for use. According to research done by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), no new schools have been built in the area, and her party’s administration established modular classrooms in Yauco, Peñuelas, Guayanilla, and Guánica.

By January 2022, the first modular school for the Agripina Seda and Áurea Quiles Claudio schools in Guánica was inaugurated, serving more than 500 students in galvanized steel modular classrooms in alternating shifts. Both schools were affected by the earthquakes. The contract for this school was worth $7,028,593, signed between the Infrastructure Financing Authority (AFI, in Spanish) and Lasalle Construction Group LLC, whose president, Luis R. Lasalle Nieves, is a donor to the PNP and contributed $2,250 to González Colón’s campaign this year.

Six months later, 20 modules were inaugurated in Guayanilla for the Herminio E. Arzola School. At the same time, the municipal administration rehabilitated the Rafael Dapena School to serve the students of Hipólito García School, which was unusable due to earthquake damage. Companies Caribe Tecno CRL and Estructuras AE were contracted to design and build temporary classrooms for this school, and the Mayor of Guayanilla, Raúl Rivera Rodríguez, told the CPI that two bids for repairs were issued but received no responses.

Estructuras AE is led by Gabriel D. Alcaraz Emmanuelli, the former secretary of the Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP, in Spanish) during Anibal Acevedo Vila’s administration. Under Ricardo Rosselló’s administration, Alcaraz was a Puerto Rico Tourism Company board member.

Both companies were also contracted to design and build the Benicia Vélez school in Yauco, Josefa Vélez Bauzá, and Ramón Pérez Purcell schools in Peñuelas. In January 2023, the modular units for the Yauco school were inaugurated, and in August of that year, students from the Peñuelas high school moved into their new modular campus.

The Adolfo Grana School closed in 2018 and was later rehabilitated by the municipal administration to temporarily accommodate high school students. Now, it serves students from the Ramón Pérez Purcell School.

In May, the Senate’s Government Committee held public hearings to gather details on the program to remodel schools using federal funds from the Accelerated Grant Program known as Faast. At the hearings, José Basora Fagundo, director of the Department of Education’s (DE) Office of Infrastructure, announced that the first construction bids were issued for the 133 schools affected by the 2020 earthquake emergency on May 2, 2024

Basora Fagundo said in a statement sent to the CPI that each of the 133 affected educational institutions has its project worksheet (PW) and an allocated repair budget. Of this total, 53 schools require repairing cracks and structural reinforcement, but only two have completed the work: Dr. Pila School in Ponce and Héctor Rivera School in Adjuntas. Two other schools in Yauco, Loaiza Cordero and José Onofre Torres, are under construction.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) identified 80 schools in the southern zone that require structural redesign, “which includes developing plans and specifications to address damages ranging from foundations to load-bearing walls, beams, and columns,” Basora Fagundo said. Of that group of schools, 54 are in the design phase, eight are in the contracting process to begin design, and 18 are about to be put out for bid.

The official predicted that the reconstruction works will be completed between June and December of 2026. González Colón’s claim is rated as “True, but…” because although no new schools have been built and the Pedro Pierluisi administration did not issue bids to rebuild more than 100 schools until five months ago, school communities in the southwestern part of the island were relocated to modular classrooms.

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