The frenetic and unbridled activity that took place in Lanzarote in the early years of this century: the construction of hotels, tourist accommodation complexes and residential buildings, attracted labor from other communities, from the European Union and from non-EU countries, which, consequently, is followed by the strong offer of jobs in the service sector.
The scarce existing educational infrastructures are overwhelmed by the new scenario. The strong demand for educational places makes rational planning impossible. The sudden schooling far exceeds the schooling of natural growth.
The town of Costa Teguise, at that time, with just three thousand residents, without public infrastructures of any kind and with about three hundred students registered, had its center of reference in the nearby town of Tahiche. According to the city council, taking as data its new licenses granted, the creation of new residential areas, the proximity to the capital, the expansion of the nearby penitentiary center and the Civil Guard barracks in the town, advise the Directorate General of Educational Infrastructure to undertake an urgent action aimed at having a school in this town.
The year 2003 was coming to an end, the budgets of the autonomous community in the process of elaboration and the educational authorities were outlining the "Southern Plan" for the urgent activation of school constructions in tourist development areas of the Canary Islands. In Costa Teguise, a priori, there are several problems: there is no budgetary allocation, there is no land ownership or qualified place to make available to the Ministry of Education and then start the entire subsequent administrative procedure: preparation of the project, bidding, tendering, awarding of the work, construction process (18 months, minimum), reception of the work and furnishing, a total of four long years, in the best of cases.
Given the background, the Administration proposes a novel formula, unknown and which initially accumulated all kinds of resistance: "an industrialized school construction." A visit is made to Catalonia to see the behavior "in situ" of these constructions, attended by the federation of parents of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the city council and education professionals. The conclusions provided are not entirely convincing, but the needs and times are pressing and the city council itself accepts the new formula and becomes the promoter.
In April 2004, the project of the New School of Costa Teguise was presented at the Beatriz Hotel, before the educational community, businessmen and other authorities, a new concept of school was presented; the then dean of the college of architects was the author of the project and responsible for the direction of the work. A center with 18 units, 12 of primary and 6 of infant, with dining room, library, gymnasium, administrative dependencies and others. Outdoor sports courts and all this on a framework of civil works foundation, landscaped areas and fencing of its entire contour. That same day the city council announces that the land is pending completion with the company "Masar Canarias" a plot of 18,000m/2 in the vicinity of "Aguaparc".
In May the tractors enter the land and begin clearing and adaptation work and at the end of this month the Government Council of the Canary Islands authorizes the expenditure of nearly four million euros.
At the end of June, the site layout is undertaken and the placement of the bases of the civil work begins. At the same time, work begins to elect a director for the future center. The profile that is requested is quite complex: type of center, construction, location, area of influence and above all the difficult and complex task of starting a newly built center and this one in particular, with some added extras. I think the choice of the director was accurate and decisive, from the beginning she knew how to give agility to the understanding and mediation with the entire educational community, with the educational administration, municipal and especially in setting up work teams, dialogue and obtain good academic results, in addition to placing the center as a reference in educational ideology in the island and the Canary Islands and what is more important, the continuity and durability of the direction project currently, after witnessing a complete generation of students from the classrooms of this center.
In August, before a strong media expectation, the first school modules arrive from Seville, in special transports and with exceptional traffic measures, they are arriving, for their assembly, the respective modules.
Here occurs the first problem in the programming of shipments from Seville, problems with subcontractors and other detractors.
In September, within all the complexity of the beginnings of courses, in those moments, in the island (more than two hundred students of over enrollment), in Costa Teguise, the situation is more convoluted: the construction of the center slows down and there are almost 100 children and other hundreds of primary and it is decided to start the school year 2004-05 in the center of Tahiche and the others in the Alfonso Spinola of Teguise, after a failed attempt to school them in the afternoon in the center mentioned in the first place.
In this way segregated in two locations and based on school transport, efforts of the faculty and management and parents, begins the accidental journey in the search for the atypical normality.
By October the work acquires a desired pace and begins to glimpse the "new style of this construction", the company presents an agenda of deadlines, in the arrival of the modules for assembly, specific accessories for construction.
The exteriors and interiors of the building are taking shape.
With the arrival of the furniture, the last days of the first quarter are set for the final presentation of the new center to students, parents and teachers. Finally, after a meteoric and eventful construction, the CEIP Costa Teguise is presented in society, it was late December and after the return of the day of Kings of 2005, the course restarts in the newly opened center.
From there, the center has grown course by course in students, in improvement projects, in innovation, never the characteristics of the building have conditioned its good functioning, it has been contextualized in its interculturality and has impregnated character to the generations formed. Therefore, today, ten years later, reviewing the newspaper archives, forgotten the resistances, misunderstandings and pressures, keeping the positive of the fruitful work that has exercised this educational center, the important role that has played in the social fabric of the town of Costa Teguise. Congratulations. Many congratulations to the entire educational community.
Juan Cruz Sepúlveda, Former Island Director of Education