Overview

The Cloud Forest School, locally known as the Centro de Educación Creativa, is a bilingual school located in the tropical cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Over 96 percent of the students at our school are Costa Rican. Well over half of the students receive significant scholarships since their families’ incomes are often less than $500 per month. The school welcomes students from the community regardless of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity or economic status.

At the core of our goals is the need to provide the children of the region the necessary skills to negotiate the delicate balance between thoughtful economic development and environmental protection.

Cloud Forest School students feel a keen sense of responsibility as stewards of the forest. They are aware of the fragility as well as the biological significance of the cloud forest. In school, they study landscape, biodiversity, and conservation in many different ways and teachers incorporate the physical surroundings into every facet of the bilingual curriculum from science to art to math.

The campus is located on 106 acres of cloud forest, which was purchased from the Nature Conservancy, with the help of donations from friends and foundations. The property consists of pristine forest and pastureland, the latter of which is slated for reforestation by our students, staff and volunteers. The living laboratory of the land surrounding the school is as vital an educational environment as its classroom buildings.

In garden plots maintained by each grade and on trails that wind through the forest, classes embark on journeys of exploration and discovery. There are few school settings where children so completely integrate experience, observation and formal learning into their lives.