Photos of the School # 3

There is an Olympic size swimming pool at the school and each class has one swimming class per week. My students go on Tuesday morning from 8:30-9:15. The pool is a big selling point to parents!




This is the basketball court and behind you can see some of the classrooms for the Segundaria (middle school) and the Prepa (high school). The middle and high school kids have their gym class here also. Can you say "HOT???" I really feel sorry for them during their gym class but they seem to enjoy it anyway.





The Segundaria school is the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades and the Prepa (Prepatoria) is the 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

The soccer "field" is cement. It is right next to the basketball court and the Segundaria and Prepa classrooms are behind.

The school has just hired a man who worked for the Chivas, a professional futbol (soccer) team in Guadalajara. This will look very good on paper, to say that the school has an important person coaching the school "futbol" (soccer) team.

A soccer team and the swimming pool entices parents to enroll their children at the school. Alas, it is the 6th week of school and we are just beginning to teach reading because the reading books just arrived. Where are the priorities here???

I guess you would call this the "cafeteria" for the school. We call it the comedor (dining room). The middle and high school students can eat here. Each day there is a buffet here, or the kids can buy other food (quesadillas, sandwiches, etc) or bring food from home. The buffet typically will have frijoles (beans), rice, fish or meat, and fruit. It costs $23 pesos ($2.30 US) which is very cheap.

I am not real sure just when the middle and high school students have their "lunch period" but a couple times a day, I see lots of students in the comedor and at the school store buying food. Perhaps sometimes it is the middle school kids and other times the high school kids.

The Primaria (elementary) students bring food from home or buy the food at school but they eat in their classrooms. "Lunch" time is at 9:15-9:35 for the Primaria students. To me, that seems a bit late for breakfast, since school starts at 7:45; yet it is early for lunch; but they call it "loncha" so I do too! Recess is at 11:05-11:35 and many kids buy more snacks from the school store. That holds them until school is dismissed at 2:45 PM. I notice that the children (and adults too) eat a lot of junk food. They are always eating chips and/or candy.

When it is their lunchtime, my students typically eat a sandwich (on bread, sometimes toasted) such as ham and cheese; quesadillas; hot dogs (straight from the package), sometimes on a bun and sometimes cut up into pieces; cold pizza; leftovers from last night's supper. They drink a lot of juice from the little juice boxes, and eat a lot of yogurt. Often they bring cut-up fruit. If they buy food from the school, it is 2 quesadillas and juice for $10 pesos, which is about $1.00 US. A sandwich from the school is $15 pesos ($1.50 US).

This is the school store for the Primaria students. They have bottled water, sodas, chips, mini-donuts, other cake-type snacks. The sodas are $6 pesos ($0.60 US) and they have Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Pepsi Light, Sprite and a lot of juices in cans.

I hope this give you a feel for the classrooms at the school, the lunch and eating areas and the sports areas.

Hasta luego.