Leona Vicario Rural Primary School

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‘Leona Vicario’ Rural Primary School was the first Mexican primary school (Grades 1-6) to be adopted as a “Sister School” of U.S. school. Its partner in the United Sates is the New Hampshire Estates Elementary School, a public school in Montgomery County, MD, with a significant Hispanic student population.

The partnership between the two schools was made possible thanks to funds raised in Partnership with the Takoma Park / Silver Spring Food Cooperative in mid-2009, which covered the adoption fee of $250.

The relationship between the two schools was officially launched on September 24th when William Dent (Natural Partners Executive Director) and Betty Soláris (Director of our local partner Biocenosis) personally delivered to the Director of the Leona Vicario a letter in Spanish from New Hampshire Estates ES with photos of the students in the participating classes. The letter was read by the Director to students at his school.

Periodic exchanges of letters will continue, until it is possible for the two schools to begin to communicate via internet once Leona Vicario’s internet connection is updated. Meanwhile, part of the adoption fee will go toward the purchase of Spanish-language version of the same curriculum materials (“Monarchs and More”) being used at New Hampshire Estates to teach about the life cycle and migratory pattern of the monarch butterfly and the threats to is habitat in the U.S. and Mexico.

Biocenosis is a key nonprofit partners of the Monarch Sister Schools Program in Mexico, along with Alternare, and will be instrumental in implementing Program activities locally. These include not only ‘PenPal’ correspondence but environmental education and the management of schoolyard-based tree nurseries and related reforestation activities with the students and their parents. New Hampshire Estates and other U.S. schools, it is hoped, will help raise the necessary funds to make restoration of key area of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve possible.