January, 2010

 Here at Caribbean Secondary School it has been an exciting and active first semester.  As always Caribbean strives to achieve high academic standards. Our mission is to provide an exemplary, standards-based college preparatory education for private middle and high school students of Ponce and surrounding areas. Part of our vision is to offer any student the same quality education offered by the most academically-distinguished schools in the United States. With open access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses we are the only school in the Ponce area listed in the AP Ledger), Caribbean School graduates are prepared to enter and thrive at the world’s finest colleges and universities, local, in the USA and abroad.  The creation of a Middle School within our Secondary School has helped our middle school students’ to better transition into their new academic setting.  The exploratory courses have been expanded to include a course in leadership skills, Leaders in Action as well as new courses in Russian and Engraving.

Caribbean School emphasizes international, cross-cultural, and technological education in order to prepare graduates for life in the 21st Century.   With the new integration of technology in our school, our students have better developed their computer skills, using integrating these as part of projects for their academic courses.  Our teachers employ a variety of different teaching strategies, not only to teach but to motivate our students to be active participants in their learning.   The uniqueness of our school is due in large part to its small class sizes and caring faculty.  The average class size in the Secondary School is 17 students.   This setting allows for a special bond to be created among faculty and students, making our school community more of a family.  During our traditional Christmas Dinner, students and faculty come together to celebrate our local traditions but also to congregate and reflect on the accomplishments of the semester.   As we continue throughout the year, our Character Counts program has also helped create a more caring community by teaching students the importance of community service.  We have included the Honor Above All program in order to promote fairness and honesty in student work.  We are currently participating in many activities with the American Red Cross in helping with the tragedy in Haiti.   

The College Placement program has continued to help our partnership with students and parents as well as help them better understand the college admission process.  Students have also had seminars in order to better understand the use of standardized testing.  They have received and discussed their PSAT scores and, this semester, each student will look at his or her IOWA test score in order to better understand his or her academic strengths and weaknesses.  Many of our seniors have received admission to many different colleges, congratulations to them all.  We have a 100% university acceptance.

I look forward to working with all of you by providing innovative leadership and solutions to maintain a school-wide culture of accountability that ensures high academic achievement and growth for every one of our students.  We are Caribbean.

Respectfully,

Frances Rivera