Indigo Schools Project

I was raised in Guatemala by a working mother who also taught me sound principles. She was a school teacher and I watched her teach in awe. After high school, I also became a teacher.

 I taught school for a while and then decided to become an engineer. I traveled to Utah and, in 1984, graduated as an engineer from BYU. Ten years later I decided to venture back to Guatemala where I pursued a postgraduate degree in Productivity Engineering and I got a job teaching at Universidad Francisco Marroquín. 

In 1997 I raised enough seed money to pursue my dream of building model schools throughout the country. I went to work and built three K-12 schools in rural Guatemala over the next four years. I also started an educational foundation and began following the dream. I have been working and preparing to launch an expansion program ever since.

The problem is multidimensional. At the basic level are the children in a given school. They are the first line recipients of the insults of a failed system of education. At the next level is the community and the final level: the country. 

 By placing mental health at the foundation of our Indigo Schools we are ensuring that the most important part of children’s development is taken care of. We believe that no other accomplishment is as important as children with the ability to regulate their emotions, a healthy self-esteem and appropriate social skills. But Indigo also has provisions to transfer language and STEAM skills.

 The Indigo Schools initiative seeks to cause transformation one level at a time. One school has the potential to transform its surroundings. It elevates its teachers, its students, the parents. That influence can reach the whole community and eventually the whole country.

The Problem:

Guatemala's system of education is broken. 

1.  Among other things, It ignores the most important aspect of children’s development: mental and emotional wellbeing. 
2. It stifles creativity in children and completely fails to provide them with the skills they need to lead this country out of poverty, corruption, and oppression.
3. In 2018 Guatemala performed amongst the lowest in Latin America’s standardized assessment of language and math skills. 
4. This is a problem affecting approximately 2 million children countrywide (about 12% of the total population).
5. In Chimaltenango, home of Colegio Mesoamericano, the number of children enrolled in K-12 programs is approximately 27,000. Source: http://www.ine.gob.gt
6. Those children are distributed in 144 private schools and 62 public schools. Source: https://www.deguate.com/munici...
7. Guatemala is not alone facing this crisis. This problem is common throughout the world. If we are successful locally, other countries could use our story as a benchmark.

We are proposing a comprehensive program of K-12 school transformation that seeks to dramatically improve the quality of education. The name we have given a school that has gone through this transformation is Indigo School. This is to be done working concurrently on three angles of the problem: (1) A solid foundation of bio/mental/emotional health, (2) The use of exploration, art, and play as vehicles for learning, (3) an emphasis in language skills and (4) using a STEAM approach to transfer science and technology skills.

This program works in four stages:

Stage 1: Model school and pilot. The school would embody all 4 aspects of an Indigo School. The program is piloted in Colegio Mesoamericano.

Stage 2: Proof of concept. Select 3-5 schools to implement the program and generate efficacy data.

Stage 3: Package Indigo toolbox manuals and procedures. Designate and train instructors, and prepare manuals and procedures.

Stage 4: Export. Select three schools in the region that are willing to undergo the Indigo transformation and begin the replication process.

Initially -during stage 1- the impact of the project reaches the community of teachers, students, and parents (approximately 950 people). As we enter stage 2, the number of people that will be impacted will be multiplied by a factor of 3 to 5. At stage 4 the multiplying factor will go up proportionally to the number of new schools that sign up.

The greatest influence that the program will have is to the students we serve on a daily basis at Colegio Mesoamericano for the span of many years. We observe these children and we get to know each one of them. And each teacher is trained in identifying the growth spaces and opportunities for each individual student.

We believe that the Indigo Schools Project directly addresses the mission of The Elevate Prize. At the most basic level, it deeply touches the lives of the students attending school by helping them better understand themselves, self-regulate, and acquire the skills they need to succeed in life. From there the impact of the project can grow through time to reach the community and the region.

It’s important to note that many of the children who will reap the benefits of this program would be precisely the children left behind and labeled as disruptive, lazy, or incapable of learning.

In 1973, at 20 years of age, I taught a group of children in a small village in Guatemala. It was a single room with 18 children in grades 1-6. My first realization of how broken our system of education came to me at the end of the school year when my students outperformed the students from other well-equipped and well-staffed schools. I started then to think of ways to transform the way we do education.

I went to college, graduated as an engineer in the U.S., and worked in that capacity for ten years. 22 years ago, I decided to follow my heart, came back to Guatemala, and started Fundación Rose, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing opportunities to disadvantaged children in rural Guatemala. For the next three years, I built three K-12 schools and I started a long term education on education.  I used my engineering training to find the root cause of the problems I saw, and then I methodically drafted a plan for transforming K-12 education in my country.  

All my life I have seen poverty, illness, and suffering all around me. And all my life I have wondered how to make a difference. I have felt a sense of mission and a desire to help resolve the root cause of so much suffering.

After college, I thought I could hide behind a nice house and a juicy salary from a big corporation in Silicon Valley. But that only lasted a few years. I left a very comfortable life to come back to Guatemala because I wanted to make a difference.
Education is at the heart of all of the ailments that afflict this country including malnutrition, poor mental health, endemic poverty, corruption at all levels, high crime rates, and deficient government institutions.

After my family, this project means everything to me. I have spent half of my life and all my resources putting it together. I truly believe that children are the key and that we are going about it all wrong in this country. And I believe I can make a difference!

I have successfully operated several k-12 schools in Guatemala for the last 22 years. I have also designed the Indigo Schools initiative, piloted many of its programs at the foundation’s schools, and continue to fine-tune it to this day.

My training as an engineer prepared me with an inquisitive mind, always ready to search for the root cause of the problems and to find effective and efficient solutions. In doing so, I have come to question and challenge the current k-12 educational establishment in Guatemala. This has led me to the Indigo Schools initiative.

Over the years I have managed many projects and teams. I know how to create a strategic plan and how to see a project from design to end-user. I have created four private k-12 schools from zero, and all of them are thriving today. These school projects have been set up as Social Enterprises and are now profitable. I understand the importance of a sound business plan, good marketing, and self-sustainability.  Grants and donations can only take you so far. Perpetuity is achieved when the system can produce a good or a service that the public wants. 

Above all, I have assembled the most amazing group of educators, mental health professionals, administrators, friends, and volunteers.  Fundacion Rose and Colegio Mesoamericano are well equipped to carry out the Indigo  Schools initiative along with its programs.

In 2008, after the economic crash in the U.S. I lost just about all the funding I  as receiving from donors for my schools. I was left with buildings, teachers without pay, and bills. I pivoted, regrouped, changed my strategy, borrowed some money, asked my teachers to accept a pay cut, rolled up my sleeves, worked in the trenches with everybody else, and got the project back on its feet from the brink of bankruptcy.

A leader is a visionary who is respected and admired. In 1997 I was looking to buy a piece of land to build a school in the town of Chimaltenango. I knew that the school I had envisioned required a large lot of land and to be surrounded by nature. The locals that were helping me insisted I needed to be close to town. But the closer we got to the center of town the higher the price and the smaller the space. One day I saw an abandoned mattress factory on a two-acre lot in the outskirts of town. It took us a while to get there due to the roughness of the dirt road. Everyone was shaking heads in disapproval. I looked at it, looked at the neighborhood, asked where the road led, asked some questions of a few neighbors, and decided to buy it right away.  People believed in my vision and brought their children despite the difficulty in getting there. Today the road is paved and everyone praises the location of our school and the beautiful surroundings.

The innovation lies in the effective use of the existing K-12 school system in the country. These are institutions already holding children anywhere from 5 to 8 hours every day, five days a week. Additionally, it’s in the creation of a model school and development center, and a certifiable program. By doing so we ensure that all of the guidelines and procedures are followed on a continuous basis by the subscribing schools.  

Our model places bio/mental/emotional health at the very foundation of all educational programs and integrates the acquisition of skills in these mental health areas with academic excellence. The effect of this initiative is to reduce the incidence of mental/emotional dysfunction in children and adolescents with the added value of a program that will transfer to them valuable life skills. 

There are no schools in Guatemala that utilize anything resembling the program we are proposing at Fundacion Rose. Our traditional educational system only focuses on testable skills in math and language. By focusing on the whole being our program creates an extraordinary environment where students and teachers can reach their highest potential.  

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Currently:

• Our Colegio Mesoamericano Students:  350

• Parents: 500

• Staff: 35

• Volunteers: 5 

In One Year: 

• Our Colegio Mesoamericano Students:  400

• Pilot schools’ students: 300

• Family Members: 700

• Staff: 45

• Volunteers: 15

In Five Years:

• Our Colegio Mesoamericano Students: 500

• Pilot Schools’ students: 600

• Subscribing schools’ students: 800

• Family Members: 2400

• Staff: 80

• Volunteers: 30

• Indigo certificate training to teachers and administrators of at least 3 other schools in the region: 175

Goals: 1 year

• In 2021 we are planning on completing Stage 1 of our plan at our model school: Colegio Mesoamericano. We also plan to start working with 1 additional school.

  • Bio/mental/emotional health: The plan is to complete teacher training  and implementation of the self-regulation program.

  • Pedagogical approach (Explore, play, learn, grow): Overhaul the curriculum and move to blended learning. Add more conversation, art and play.

  • Language skills: Fine tune the leveled reading program both in English and in Spanish.  Achieve 1.5 million words for students at 10th grade.

  • STEAM: rearrange all science content to be presented in PBL form. Incorporate the use of online content presentation for 50% of all subjects.

• Create manuals and procedures which will be used both internally and externally, as we move into Stage 2

Goals: 5 years

• Move into Stage 2 of the plan: Proof of concept.

• Select 3 schools and enter into an agreement for implementation at low cost.

• Train 8 instructors/experts who will begin the process of teacher training at the new schools

• Concurrently, move into Stage 3 and begin the process

• Fine tune all products and processes.

• Create a Social Business Plan to begin

Currently, we are working with five organizations/institutions:

• Kidnected: A nonprofit organization that seeks to connect kids around the world in meaningful ways so they can build a new sense of humanity together. They have created a platform called The Wonderment, where children can create and develop projects. The students of Mesoamericano school use The Wonderment as a tool for them to invent future projects and connect with other students around the world. We have been working on projects with them since 2015. 

• Niños de Guatemala (NDG): A nonprofit organization with headquarters in the Netherlands that operates three schools outside Antigua Guatemala. Since 2018 we have been working together, and sharing resources. 

• Playnovate: An educational resource technology company producing game-like applications. The company uses science and engaging content to cultivate kids’ scientific thinking and creativity. It’s pedagogical is based on constructivism and project-based learning. We have been working with them since 2019

• Snow College: A U.S. college in the state of Utah. Since 2016 Fundacion Rose and Colegio Mesoamericano have had a partnership whereby college students and teachers come to our school for a number of weeks in order to learn and serve. Snow college also has granted scholarships to some of our outstanding high school graduates.

• Universidad de Galileo: A private University in Guatemala specializing in technology and engineering. Fundacion Rose has co-sponsored several teacher training events with this university. Other joint projects are the sharing of an online learning platform. We have been partners since 2013. 

The Indigo Schools Project adds value to any K-12 school system and society as a whole. This value is in the form of enhanced human potential and valuable life skills. Here are a few areas where the project adds value:

• Self-regulation, self-esteem, and social skills. This is huge. A child’s trajectory through life can be predicted by whether or not he/she has those skills.
• Language skills in Spanish. This is the platform on which a child’s education is built. No language skills, no education. Indigo graduate students read 2,000,000 words each year and are skilled at writing and public speaking.
•  Language skills in English. Indigo Schools guarantee that children graduate with a CEFR B2 level of English proficiency as a minimum. This alone will give a person in Guatemala an edge for more and better employment.
• Science and Math skills. Indigo schools promote and enhance in children their natural curiosity and desire to experiment and find out how things work. As a result, a higher than the average number of our graduates pursue scientific and engineering careers.
• Digital Citizenship. Our students grow up using technology in all aspects of their academic learning. They also learn the responsible use of it and they acquire profitable skills such as coding and website design and optimization.

Path to Financial Sustainability:

1.  Contributions from Parents. The financial model for the private school that serves as the model school is that of a Social Business whereby 50% of the participating families pay full tuition.  Such tuition provides a basic self-sustainability of 60-70%.

2. Sponsor Program. According to the plan, 50% of the students should be on a scholarship. Sponsors can help bear the burden of this program through monthly contributions toward the payment of tuition on behalf of these disadvantaged children.

3. Other Social Businesses. The school and/or the foundation will establish other social businesses such as a school for languages, production of educational tools, and the sale of consulting and training services for the purpose of financing the humanitarian objectives of the project.

4. Fundraising, grants and donations.  We will seek additional funds from donating entities in order to complement all other sources of income. These funds will be used mainly for the purposes of expansion and extending the project to other communities.

Sources of funds from June 2019 to June 2020:

1.  Contributions from Parents. 

• Organization: Fundacion Rose/Colegio Mesoamericano

• Amount: $280,000.00.

• Sources: Tuition payments and other parent contributions

Sponsor Program. 

• Organization: Fundacion Rose

• Amount: $10,000.00.

• Sources: Individual sponsors for children

Other Social Businesses. 

• Organization: Language Academy

• Amount: $15,000.00.

• Sources: Tuition payments 

Estimated Expenses for 2020:

• School salaries, wages and benefits: $297,000.00

• Other expenses:  $14,000.00

• Indigo Schools Project budget: $100,000.00

I am convinced that the combination of mental/emotional health with world-class education can unlock the fantastic potential of this country. I can do one school and demonstrate this idea. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now. But in order to scale this project and reach all corners of the country I will need the Elevate Prize and I will need to engage with the big dragon: the Ministry of Education.

Funding and revenue. This is a weak area for us, particularly in finding proper sources of income and managing them properly.

Legal matters. As we move from the pilot phase to the social business phase we will need legal advice so as to set things up correctly.

Marketing, media and exposure. This is the area where we will need most help. The success of the project hinges around our ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and to convince the decision makers that ours is the best game in town