Calasanz School. LEÓN (NICARAGUA)
Lissette Saavedra. Principal
I consider myself a passionate educator with 30 years of experience that I owe in large part to the Pious Schools. After graduating from normal school, I began my work as a teacher in elementary education, then I was promoted to high school while pursuing a degree in Social Sciences.
I continued my academic training in Social Work, which allowed me to attend and exercise my work in a more comprehensive way to children and young people.
In 2014, I became the first lay and female director of the school always led by Piarist religious, thus demonstrating their openness and trust toward lay collaborators. As principal, I have followed up and promoted the training of teachers, which has had an impact on improving the quality of education and the integral development of students.
With the desire to continue growing professionally, I completed a master’s degree in Education, consolidating my commitment to teaching and my passion for the integral formation of children and young people. After more than 10 years in this task of leading, I continue believing and betting on education in the style of St. Joseph Calasanz, in Piety and Letters, in Faith and Culture.
From the Pious Schools, I am passionate about the way they see children and young people, as well as the style of integral education proposed by St. Joseph Calasanz. I am enthusiastic about lifelong learning and the mission of bringing piety and letters into the lives of the students.
An innovative experience in the school is project-based learning (PBL), where students worked collaboratively in the creation and sale of a real product.
This innovative practice had as a learning objective:
- Understand the concepts of cost, selling price and profit margin.
- Develop skills to develop a basic sales budget.
- Apply mathematical calculations to determine unit costs, total costs and profit margins.
- Encourage creativity and critical thinking in business decision making.
- Develop financial competencies through a sales simulation.
Our Calasanz León School began in 1949 when Fathers Remigio Mengual and Joaquin Ferrándis arrived in Leon, coming from the Piarist Province of Valencia, responding to the spontaneous and insistent offer of the Bishop of Leon. Then came other Piarists like Ramón Barberá, Alberto Cárcel, Bruno Martínez among others. In the mid 50’s, the building we occupy today was built in the indigenous neighborhood of Sutiaba.
Currently, Calasanz León School has 685 students, with 35 teachers. We attend children in the morning shift and in the afternoon we offer dance, sports, reading club and singing. We are the only school that offers swimming lessons. We also have a chapel where Sunday Eucharist is celebrated open to the community. There is a Calasanz Cultural Center that supports underprivileged children.
We accompany the students in their development and maintain close communication with the parents’ board of directors to ensure integral development and to respond to specific needs they present.
Pastoral care plays an important role in school life, contributing to the spiritual dimension and Christian values. It is the transversal axis that guides our educational proposal, and we give life to it through the different subjects and activities, such as retreats, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, processions, novenaries, communions and Eucharistic celebrations open to the community.
The current situation in Nicaragua and the economic crisis make it impossible to increase the family fee to better respond to maintenance and improvement works in the facilities, as well as to improve teachers’ salaries. This situation generates labor instability and many teachers left the country in search of better living conditions.
As a particular challenge, we must struggle to strengthen the integration of faith and culture, as well as maintain the proper balance between cultural, social and family reality.
In our school we must join efforts to incorporate more of the Calasanctian charism. There is still little availability or dedication to the assigned functions and a lack of commitment and Calasanctian identity on the part of the collaborators. We must continue to promote ongoing formation, focused on pedagogical competencies for life and the use of ICT, as well as socio-emotional and spiritual skills.
CALASANZ SCHOOL
KM 4, Exit Poneloya road, Sutiava neighborhood
direccion@leon.colegiocalasanz.edu.ni.
Founded: 1949
Academic Offering: 685 students in kindergarten, elementary and high school.
Non-Formal Education: Calasanz Cultural Center, sports, dance group, choir, reading club and musical band.
There is Calasanz Movement in all its stages.
