This year continues to keep us on our toes, in the US and in Haiti. Thanks to your student scholarship, CCH is here to help our partner school principals, teachers, and students. I wanted to give you an update on what the rest of the year will look like in Haiti (at least as far as we know right now!)
The Ministry of Education in Haiti has decided on a schedule to finish the 2019-20 school year and begin the 2020-21 year. Remember that students in Haiti are required to pass a national year-end school exam (usually held in June) before they can advance to the next grade level. In-person classes will resume nationwide by August 10th to finish up the 2019-2020 school year. Due to school closures in September – November 2019 from political protests, and COVID-related closures this spring, exams for 2020 were not held as usual in June and have been rescheduled for October. Then after a short break, students and teachers will begin the next school year’s curriculum (2020-2021) in November.
Students and teachers are encouraged to wear face masks and practice social distancing. Each of our main partner schools is planning for these challenges in different ways suited to their unique circumstances.
CCH is supporting each of these partner schools, as well as our new school partner in Chabin, with training and reusable cloth face masks for all students and staff.
CCH Education Liaison, Dave Pierre, has been working with principals and teachers at our partner schools all summer long. Many of these teachers have assisted CCH’s Coronavirus prevention campaign, going out into different communities around Jacmel to teach families how to protect themselves. Now, Dave is helping teachers and principals figure out how to set up their classrooms and their schedules for the start of school.
It’s always a challenge to begin a new school year in Haiti. In normal years, it often takes a couple of months for students to trickle back into school as farming harvests wrap up and families gather the funds for tuition. We are not sure what to expect at all this year! But students have missed so much school, it will be a difficult task to prepare them for exams.
Please pray for our students, along with their teachers, families and communities as Haiti reopens schools next month. And thanks – as always – for being part of the Coalition!
