According to a news release Monday from the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS), this inaugural ALAS Sister Schools Program consists of four pairings representing individual elementary, middle and high schools in Vermont, Connecticut, New York and California. Over the course of this academic year, the groups will work with partner schools in Puerto Rico and apply skills and knowledge from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics to develop solutions for real-world challenges. Their work will be presented in April.
The goal of the program is to empower historically marginalized youth to become leaders in STEAM-related fields. The pairings for 2023-2024 are as follows:
- Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg, Vt., with Abelardo Martinez Otero School (high school) in Arecibo, Puerto Rico
- Hanover Elementary School in Meriden, Conn., with Pablo Casals School (high school) in Bayamon, Puerto Rico
- National School District (sixth grade) in National City, Calif., with Dr. Ramon Emeterio Betances (middle school) in Caguas, Puerto Rico
- Peekskill High School in Peekskill, N.Y., with Lila Maria Mercedes Mayoral School (high school) in Ponce, Puerto Rico
ALAS Executive Director Maria Armstrong said each of the eight groups will be of typical classroom size, around 25 students, and led by a teacher. Suggesting food scarcity as a possible project topic for Peekskill High School in New York, she said the two groups could learn about how their climates, soil types, growing seasons and crops differ, as do their means of farm-to-fork conversion. This topic could apply to any grade, but the level of detail would vary by grade level. High school students, for example, would be asked to analyze properties of the different soils.
“What are the variables?” Armstrong said. “And ultimately, why is food so expensive when it gets to your table?”
The parings are based on grade levels, not demographics, she said. All of the participating districts are ALAS members, though there are no requirements mandating percentages of Latino or Spanish-speaking students. Still, the groups will be expected to communicate in both English and Spanish and highlight “math as their universal language,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong, who is based in Washington, D.C., taught in Puerto Rico as part of a hurricane disaster relief effort in 2017, and she said the biggest difference between the two school systems is the governmental structure. In Puerto Rico, every school function is managed at the state level, as opposed to municipal, county or district levels. She said the curricula, performance metrics, routines of school days and academic years, and extracurricular activities there are similar to those of the United States.
Puerto Rico, however, has proportionately more specialized schools focused on different vocations and fine arts than the United States has, Armstrong said.
“Here we just kind of tinker,” she said. “There it’s more involved.”
Armstrong said every participant in the ALAS Sister Schools Program will have a chance to discuss their experience at the end of the project. She hopes the program will grow to eventually include students in every state.
“This is to lay a foundation. We don’t want this to be a one-hit wonder,” she said. “These are more than just projects. It’s a method to scale up STEAM education and identify these collaborations as something that works.”
