When looking at the roof of Garza’s elementary school, in the district of Nosara, from inside and outside, it’s hard to believe that the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) inaugurated the infrastructure just seven years ago, after rebuilding it after the impacts of the Sámara earthquake. Rust, caused by the ocean breeze and lack of maintenance, is eating away at the school’s roof at an accelerated rate since it is located across from the beach.
There are leaks in the classroom ceilings, holes in the institution’s roof and the gym is closed due to the detachment of the metal that covers it.
“It’s sad, the school is quite new and the roof is so damaged,” commented the institution’s cook, Karen Marchena, while she accompanied The Voice on a tour of the educational center. “There is too much destruction due to salt residue on the metal sheets. This year, we have a feeling that with the wind and the sheets being a little loose there will be more leaks and more times when things will get wet in the classrooms.”
The rainy season that’s just around the corner threatens to flood the institution’s hallways and interrupt lessons.
To lessen the impact of the downpours, the community is scrambling to raise funds to fix what is urgent, the replacement of the school roof, which costs around ₡21 million (about $41,000), according to the budget estimated by a representative of the Benavides Castillo CR Construction company, Jader Benavides.
I would say that 80% of the metal on the roof is in poor condition. In addition, approximately 15% of the purlins (that hold up the metal sheets) are rusted,” Benavides explained to The Voice.
The school’s Board of Education, together with the Dreamcatchers foundation, raised approximately ₡2,400,000 (about $4,700) with recreational and cultural activities such as the Garza Fest, according to the foundation’s social projects director, Cinthya Gonzáles. In addition, they have another ₡4,600,000 (about $9,000) raised through GoFundMe.
The president of the board, Katherine Villalobos, affirmed that they already have enough money to buy the materials. Now what they lack is the cost of labor.
In the coming days, the board and the foundation plan to organize more activities, including a race, to reach the fundraising goal.
The metal sheets from the gym roof that came off in December ended up in the middle of the street. Members of the Board of Education and teachers moved the metal to avoid accidents.Photo: Cesar Arroyo
MEP promises to intervene
“Ohh wow…. In seven years? It’s totally rusted. That is dangerous and absolutely everything is at the point of being full of holes,” admitted the director of the Educational Infrastructure Administration (Spanish acronym: DIE), Lourdes Sáurez, when The Voice showed her photos of the state of the school’s roof during an interview.
Sáurez expressed that, since she took the helm of DIE at the beginning of 2023, she doesn’t remember receiving any request or petition for help from the school. The official said that the school’s maintenance must be assumed by both the board and MEP.
“It’s a mutual responsibility but [the educational board] must keep us informed, because we don’t have people in the regions nor do we go around looking school by school to see how they are.”
According to the president of the board, they rent the gym space to raise funds and cover school expenses such as the electricity bill, despite the danger of another metal sheet detaching from the gym.Photo: Anatoly Haindrava
After seeing images of the school’s deterioration, the official promised to send an engineer at the beginning of May to firm up help over the next two months.
“I commit to sending an engineer to visit them in the first weeks of May, to make an assessment to find out why it deteriorated so quickly and what is needed. Then with his visit and the money they have, the improvements that we are going to make between June and July are validated,” she stated.
If, despite Sáurez’s promise, the board would like to assume responsibility for changing the roof on its own, the leader commented that they should request authorization from MEP.
“They need authorization from us to know what material they’re going to put on, lest they put a metal sheet of a lower caliber or of poor quality that’s going to be worse if anything. Then we just know about the project and we ask for a final report on what they did,” she explained.
Classes will continue regularly
Changing the roof would take 12 weeks, according to the time estimated by the representative of Benavides Castillo CR Construction.
The school’s director, Evelyn Rojas, emphasized that she will not suspend any classes during the roof repairs.
“The idea is not to suspend any classes. We take the little ones to other classrooms so that they don’t miss classes,” she commented.
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