Punta de Mita, Mexico - After five months of negotiations and meetings among Peace, school principals, teachers, and SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública) Management, a historic teaching contract was signed by Peace Punta de Mita and SEP on April 23, 2015.

The three-year renewable contract with SEP Nayarit, the Mexican federal supervising education department, allows Peace to hold daily English language classes in all grades in all public schools in all three villages of Punta de Mita.

This means that each and every Punta de Mita student, all 1,000 of them, from kindergarten through high school, will receive 5 hours per week of English instruction, a very beneficial increase over the two hours per week that PPM had previously been delivering since last year.

The details of the contract were negotiated by Peace Executive Director, Ceci Paredes, with the help of Peace's outside counsel, David Connell. Since SEP has never before contracted with a non-profit providing teaching services, the legal process was a critical one and could not have been accomplished without David's assistance. Peace continues to benefit from the regular pro bono support from David and his legal team at Connell & Associates, Mexican Attorneys and Consultants in Puerto Vallarta.

Objections Overcome by Peace

While the benefits to students of having additional English language instruction may be obvious to many of us (including the students' parents,) several principals and teachers were resistant to having a third party provide that instruction. The schools objecting to having English instruction both rejected the opportunity to increase the English class hours, and, in some cases, refused to allow any English classes at all.

This resistance began in the fall of 2014 and continued into January of 2015. Ceci worked with parents, kindergarten teachers and others to develop a strategy to overcome the objections of some of the principals and teachers.

1,000+ Students Learning English Every Day

After gaining parental support, Ceci, with the help of Sabine Emberson, held meetings with Bahía de Banderas SEP supervisors, other supervisors and local principals, and, eventually and most importantly, the Nayarit head of SEP, Lic. Marco Antonio Ledesma. He was supportive of English language instruction, and very supportive of Peace's ability to deliver that instruction.

After a month of contractual negotiations, Lic. Ledesma has now signed the agreement which assures that Peace will be delivering regular, extensive English instruction to 1,000+ students in the Punta de Mita public schools.

Lic. Ledesma and each of the SEP Nayarit directors will be coming to Punta de Mita to observe the Peace English Program in action on May 8th. This visit will be a catalyst for continuing to build trusting relationships with local public schools.

Peace applauds the students, parents, SEP supervisors and others who are helping our local community to have a brighter future through education. And all this is thanks to the donations, financial and in-kind, of the dozens of Punta de Mita area stake holders who support Peace.