Current Programs

Badi School

The story of Badi School is now known by many people. Two ordinary people in 1993 took an extra step to render extraordinary service to the children of San Miguelito. It all started from a wish to educate the children of their community to break the cycle of dependency and poverty. The Torrez's built the Badi School from a one room kindergarten in 1993 to a full fledged K-12 educational institution known for its excellent academic education and moral leadership program in 2003, with 1500 students on the waiting list.

Of the 290 students, 40% receive scholarships. The school strives for academic excellence, the development of an ecological consciousness, and the creative instruction of English, in addition to free parent-education workshops. The school is financially self-sufficient and has grown organically based on sound financial and development plans, and because of the sacrificial services of its Founders, the Torrez family.

Mr. Torrez is an engineer by profession who worked for the Panama Canal for several years and funded the school construction with his income. Mrs. Torrez is an educator and serves as the principal of the School. Their sons, Alex, is a computer science graduate and serves as the IT instructor at the School, and David is a virtuoso violist who manages the arts and music programs at the school. The present tuition schedule is $50/month.

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Programs Receive Excellence Award

The “Top Business International Reward” from the consortium Montreal Eventos Internacional was awarded to Badi School in 2006. The quality of education, salutary productivity and clear social responsibility were cited. The updated academic curriculum with special use of GIS/GPS technology was praised. In productivity, the production of our Virtues Manuals from K to 6th Grade, Technology books for 7th to 12th Grades, the admission of our graduated students at the Technological University with the highest degrees in the Council Board of Education admission exam, some scholarships obtained in private universities for the first two places of the graduated students, the first place on 2,004 obtained during the Regional Spelling Contest and the second place on 2,005 in the National Spelling Contest were noted for the award.

In the social responsibility area our registration and monthly payments fees were mentioned as the cheapest in the city . The scholarships provided, the street maintenance, the several extracurricular free of charge courses to level the students, painting art and music free of charge courses were mentioned as well as the Family Fair prepared by the 12th Grade students in order to gather funds to cover their graduation needs and activities. The Virtues courses provided to some public schools as part as the 80 hours of social labor with the participation of our 12th grade students, were remarked. The training offered to 45 public school teachers each year in areas of GIS/GPS Technology and Mathematics was praised.

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Badi Library

The large, new library is a bright and airy structure, well-designed and appointed, with tiles on the floor laid as if they were carpet. The library has an assembly room/gym over it, so as not to waste space. Two new additional classrooms were added on the right side of the building and will be immediately filled by forty newly registered students from the long waiting list.

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Computer Labs

The Computer Lab of Badi School now has 40 new computers!

The Technology curriculum includes computer sciences related topics for the 8th graders and word processing skills for 7th and 8th grade students. The students also receive training in how to apply technology in Geographic Sciences. They learn how to read a map, then how to construct a map by conventional methods, such us field-surveying, geodesy, Global Position System (GPS) technology, Aerial Photography and Satellite Imagery. The current technology only permits the students to make coordinate transformations, flight plan computation, and basic triangulations, using basic DOS programs.

The computers sent by Mona have now been set up in a new lab and opened to all the students of all the classes. The vision of this school is to prepare the students to understand the applications of a Geographic Information System, and connect them to other students in other schools via the net for curricular and cultural exchange. Additionally, the lab is open as a vocational center for the women in the area at minimal cost to raise their technological skills and provide for better paying job opportunities.

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Music and Drama

The school supports and encourages students' participation in all forms of art, including painting, Panamanian dances and drama. Of note is the "Universal Peace" drama which has been performed during the World Peace Day celebrations in several locations.

The school also has a string group with 12 members. David Torrez, 18, a violist, is the music instructor. The school is forming a string ensemble orchestra now that the needed string instruments have been purchased.

Fine Art

The painting students make their own canvases, mix their own colors, and express their inner beauty with every brush stroke.

We are pleased to announce that the Edna Callahan Connolly Memorial Fund was established this year through the Mona Foundation to support these wonderful arts programs.

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