Department of Education

Although the initiative was announced as starting in August, it will launch two months later.

Applications to the Puerto Rico Department of Education for vouchers, or educational certificates, that allow students to transfer to private schools fell 76% between 2020 and 2025.

The agency started turning over the information after a second lawsuit was filed this year over its failure to provide records to the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

With great fanfare, Francisco Domenech, Puerto Rico’s chief of staff, announced new rules governing lobbying before the island’s government. But a year later, both agencies and lobbyists are flouting the protocol.

Nearly three months after the initial request, four agencies have not provided the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo with communications, investigative files or the names of officials designated under a memorandum issued by the Office of the Chief of Staff.

The island’s Department of Education is losing students, in part, due to a cycle of constant school relocations, deteriorating facilities, and shortened schedules from noon to 5 p.m., which are stopgap measures that fail to address the core problem: an unrepaired infrastructure, despite the availability of funds.

Despite record heat in Puerto Rico as of August 2023, public schools remain unprepared for increasingly frequent hot days. School communities also grapple with ongoing power outages.

Families, mayors, teachers, and assistants are on high alert as the Trump administration threatens to cut funding for the Head Start and Early Head Start programs, which serve the poorest families in the United States, including its territories.

The federal investigation began five years ago and covers a period during which the senator was in the upper echelons of the Department of Education, worked as a contractor for the State Elections Commission, and served as the electoral commissioner for former Governor Pedro Pierluisi, according to sources.

While the Governor downplayed the resignation of nearly a dozen experts he had convened to decentralize and depoliticize the agency, the federal government asked him to put the community’s needs at the forefront of the initiative and ensure the right voices are seated at the table.

Limited resources, overworked teachers, and abandoned recreational areas are part of the challenges faced by an academic program that for years has been a source of talent and international medals for Puerto Rico.

More than 40 years ago, Alejandro Benítez began training athletes as a routine after teaching in a classroom from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. At 74 years old, and already retired from teaching, he is still a hammer and discus throw coach.

Even with the little that is known about the performance and educational quality of these schools, one of these institutions is proposing an aggressive expansion plan for the 2024-2025 school year.

The Department of Education has been unable to recruit school psychologists in 10% of schools. The Humacao school district has 16 unfilled positions. Meanwhile, the psychologists already hired expose poor working conditions.

Educators have also not received the promised incentive for teaching classes on the island municipality.

A woman talks about the reprisals she faced from the nominated Secretary of Education, Yanira Raíces Vega, for not approving the appointment of an administrative assistant who was recommended by the mayor of Orocovis and the former Deputy Secretary of Education, Héctor Joaquín Sánchez.