School Days

School started in Belize this week and so our family has been transitioning back into the school year.   Caelan is starting again back on his online high school studies and we have been trying to help Quinn adjust to his Belizean school.

The Belizean school system is based on the British school system as they were a former British colony but it is definitely affected by the fact that it is a third-world country.  English is the official language in the schools.  Education is provided through "Standard 6" grade which is equivalent to our 8th grade.  Each student is responsible to pay the school fees, have a uniform and basic supplies.  The fees are not high - about $20 U.S. per student but this can be a huge amount for a family with 6 or 7 school aged children out in a village.  High school is on a merit basis and costs about $400 U.S. per year.  This makes it unobtainable for a lot of Belizean kids.  Often a village is only able to send one or two children at a time.  We have had one villager come to our house weekly since we arrived selling coconut shell carvings and other handmade items to pay for his son's books for high school this year.  I ran into him in town last week at a hardware store and he showed me the list of books and was excited that he was going to buy the last one that day.

There is not a "public school system" like in the U.S. but most schools are affiliated with a church and the government subsidizes their operating costs.  The only real "government" schools I have seen are in remote villages where churches have not established a school.  The Methodist and Catholic churches seem to have the most schools in the Toledo district.  For the most part, children attend the school closest to their home although in Punta Gorda the Methodist school's fees are the lowest which attracts a lot of families.  All of the schools seem to be short on teachers, space, books and supplies!  Quinn immediately noticed that there are no school playgrounds either.

Both of the schools in Punta Gorda are very large and so we opted to enroll Quinn in the school closest to our clinic in the small village of Forest Home - Forest Home Methodist School.  We purchased fabric for his uniforms and paid a lady in Jacintoville village to sew them. You cannot buy ready made uniforms and it took me a while to find a seamstress since all of them had their hands full with orders.  I thought about doing it myself since I brought my sewing machine but there are no patterns available, they just take the child's measurements and know how to cut and sew them.

Quinn's Classroom

Quinn was very apprehensive and a bit overwhelmed at first but has done remarkably well.  We figured he should be in Standard 1 by age but was placed in Standard 2 due to his previous schooling.  There are 9 children in his grade who still cannot write.  His class of combined Standard 2 and Standard 3 is 34 students and taught by the principal.  She has great English skills and her accent is very understandable although Quinn has struggled to understand her when we are not there since they often speak in the Belizean street language, Creole.  He also has been surprised that there are very few books and no workbooks.  One of the students are called to read from a textbook and the others write the information down.  A lot of their work involves drawing pictures as well as writing paragraphs about the subject. Even though it is so different from his previous school experiences and a big adjustment for him, each day he has done better and we have been so proud of him!

An update on Slim....we were able to buy a plane ticket and get a lawyer from Belize City down here for the continuation of his trial last week.  Apparently all charges were thrown out within minutes.  The lawyer also picked up at least three other clients as people whose cases were also scheduled in court that morning were really happy to have a lawyer in town.