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.
An empty court at Escuela Marcelino Canino Canino in Dorado was once filled with children bouncing basketballs and batting ping pong balls back and forth in friendly competition. Now, the space is quiet. School spaces represent more than learning how to multiply numbers and write essays: they are places of cohesion and connection.