More than half of Puerto Rico’s public schools have closed their doors in the last 10 years. Government officials justified the “consolidations,” saying hurricane damage and declining student enrollment necessitated them. In the years since, some schools have found new life as community centers, while others have been leased or sold. The majority of buildings, however, decompose like rotting corpses, their bones swaddled in nature’s eerie embrace, remnants of past lives slowly disintegrating into earth.
Tree branches wrap around former school buildings at Escuela Intermedia Marcelino Canino Canino in Dorado. The majority of closures (65%) occurred in rural areas, where distance between schools is greater and disruptions in children’s transportation to and from class placed greater burdens on caregivers to navigate changes.