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My husband and I are in the research phase of a move to Costa Rica and we have a 4 year old who will be in Kindergarten next year. I’ve looked online at some ‘private’ schools but I’m not certain that’s the best way to go. We don’t want an ‘american’ school just a good education. We know very little spanish currently. We aren’t thinking of living in San Jose or any of the larger cities so I’m curious about researching some of the more ‘rural’ schools.
Any sugguestions?We have bought a house there & I have been doing research via internet for schools for our 11 & 14 yr old. Although I don’t have any answers for you I can share my observations. The lists of private schools there most always contain many of the same schools. There are many, many other private schools that, for whatever reason, are not on those lists. It appears those schools are found by word of mouth. One thing to consider when making the decision to move to a rural area is fewer prvate schools. They seem to be in the more populated areas. Some who move to Costa Rica opt to homeschool. Hope some of this helps.
I have lived in San Ramon for 15 years and am very happy with a private school here called the Colegio Bilingui, or Bilingual School. It runs from pre kindergarden through twelth grade. My gringo son was here for the whole year of his eighth grade and loved it. They stress english, so native speakers are heros. I am married to a tica and we also have a four year old son. He loves school and wants to go even on the weekends. I will be glad to give you more info if you are interested.
Thanks for the info and in answer to your question, I would love more information.
1. Is Colegio Bilingui on an “American” school schedule?
2. Do they teach Spanish?
3. Can you give me an idea on tuition?
4. Excuse my ignorance, for I do not know the proximity of San
Ramon to San Jose area; does the school service San Jose?Once again, thank you.
The school is on the tico schedule which is actually more practical than ours. The end of the school year basically coincides with the end of the calender year. They took my 8th grader in May when he graduated from the 7th grade in the states. He entered mid year here and graduated 8th grade in December. The school day is 8AM till 3PM except for the little ones who get out at noon. They do teach spanish. Tuition is a nonevent and runs about $100 per month. San Ramon is about 45 minutes NW of San Jose. Some of the San Jose private schools seem too americanized to me and have lost the cultural flavor which brought most of us here in the first place.
Ben, why don’t you put your tico child in the public school?
My wife and I are planning on putting ours when they become of school age in the public school that she attended in San Jose. We are planning on home schooling them on the english end of the education.
I do understand for the gringo children because of language difference but why not your tico children?
lots of reasons. 1. The teachers at this particular private school are excellent. My son’s english teacher is from PA. His french teacher is from Paris. 2. The public schools do not stress english enough due to lack of good english teachers. 3. Due to lack of text books in the public schools, much is learned by “rote”. That is copying things off of the blackboard into a notebook. In my opinion, this method is not only boring, it is very conducive to a dull student. 3. The public schools run a double shift in elementary grades meaning that they only go for about 4.5 hours per day. This along with many public holidays, teacher strikes, and “meetings” makes for a weak school year in number of classroom hours. 4. Computer skills are now necessary from kindergarden and up. Public schools are far behind in this area. 5. Extracurricular activities and sports are nonexistant at most public schools. I am sure that the public schools can look forward to a positive future. At this time, they are not competitive with the typical private school. Hopefully Costa Rica will implement some type of fair taxation on property in order to modernize its public school system. A high literacy rate is misleading here. “See Spot run” does not cut it any more. These observations have been made over 16 years immersed in the culture of this great little country.
We are planning to move to Costa Rica within a year. Neither of our children speak Spanish (although we are taking a family crash course right now), so we need a bilingual school for our two daughters, grades 3 & 5. I would be interested in finding out how to contact Colegio Bilingui so that we could visit the school in early June this year when we will be there with our children. Do they have a website? An e-mail address? Any info would be helpful. I’ve been communicating with many of the well-known bilingual schools, but I am concerned partly because of the cost of most of them and partly because we want our children to experience and become part of Tico culture – not just be transplanted Americans in an American school. Because of this, I believe extracurricular activities are important. Any thoughts?
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