Mount Prospect woman opening Costa Rican school

Kerry Piazza McClennen has something in common with Oprah.

She, too, is opening her own school in a developing country.

The 1996 graduate of Prospect High School and former Mount Prospect resident is working with five other teachers in the Guanacaste region on Costa Rica's Pacific coast to open a K-12 school in September.

Initial enrollment is expected to be between 40 and 60 students, both Costa Ricans and children of transplants from Europe, Canada and the United States.

The school will be unique, McClennen said, because it will be the first school in the area to teach in both English and Spanish.

La Paz Community School will teach subjects in both languages and will mix the English-speaking children, most of whom have parents who work in the hospitality and real estate industries, with native Costa Ricans.

"We also plan to use place-based learning at La Paz, which means that we will be using the local community as a learning tool," McClennen said. "We believe that you have so much to learn from your surroundings instead of just through a textbook."

For example, there will be backpacking trips to learn about biology and the environment and sailing trips to learn about marine biology, weather patterns and maritime literature.

Once the school is fully accredited in the United States, graduates will receive both U.S. and Costa Rican diplomas.

The road to Costa Rica was an interesting one for McClennen.

After earning bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of New Hampshire, she then taught English at a public school in that state for three years. That is where she met her husband, Abel McClennen, a physics teacher.

They both had a desire to teach in different places, so they decided to teach in Brazil for a year.

After that, they taught in Guatemala for two years.

Then they traveled to Costa Rica to visit friends and fell in love with that country so they took jobs last school year at an American school in Guanacaste.

"But before long we realized that we were teaching in a school that was just for the wealthy," she said. "We were living in this diverse community with a very international mix of Costa Ricans, Europeans and North Americans but the people never mixed."

McLennen said the tourism industry is exploding in Costa Rica. As more and more people come to Costa Rica, they wanted to preserve Costa Rican culture.

"Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott are all planning to build large projects there within the next three years. And we didn't want to see the Costa Ricans being left behind."

The idea for the La Paz Community School came last spring when another teacher, who was studying the impact of foreigners on the local community suggested that a good way to bring people together would be through a community school or community center, McClennen said.

The idea immediately took root with the McClennens and four of their fellow teachers so they quickly set about establishing their school.

Soon, people were volunteering to help, she said.

An ex-Los Angeles police officer offered his recreational complex, called Jungle Gym, for the temporary campus. They are now renovating the space and building new classrooms.

Parents offered their secretarial and administrative skills. A Costa Rican, elected to their school board, helped get permits with his government contacts.

As for the teachers, they approached two area pre-schools, looking for potential students, and ended up with totally full kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. The older grades will be blended classrooms.

And the student body will also be blended. Some Costa Rican students are enrolled, paying the full tuition of $4,500 per year. Between 10 and 15 Costa Rican students have been accepted on scholarship, paying only $500 per year. And the balance of the students will be Canadians, Americans and Europeans who are primarily from France and Italy.

All parents will be expected to donate a certain number of hours to the school each year in service, depending upon their skills.

"We want to get community members into the school and students out into the community. That is all part of the plan," McClennen said.

McClennen admits, however, that she is not without worries and reservations. Unlike Oprah, she and her husband and the other teachers are not independently wealthy. So they need donors and fundraising events to pay for the scholarship children.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Joey Harrington, a personal friend of one of the other teachers, has donated $10,000 through his foundation and McClennen has applied for a grant from Oprah's Angel Network.

All other funds are coming from local fundraisers and through tax-exempt donations, earmarked for La Paz, to the World Children's Project Web site at www.worldchildrensproject.com.

For more information about the school and helping to sponsor a scholarship child, visit www.lapazschool.org.