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Belize has a new private primary school. It’s called Horizon Academy at mile three and a half on the Northern Highway. It’s the vision of the Castillo family of educators: Dian, who’s the principal, her mom Alice, who’s a Director and her sister Leslie who’s a teacher. But they’ve also got a dedicated core group of parents who’ve worked to take the school from vision to reality in record time. Principal Dian Maheia said that right off, what’s most special is the ratio of boys to girls.

Dian Maheia, Principal
“Yes we are doing new things with the national curriculum and with the positive approaches to education, we have chosen to model. But more than that, we are beginning today with an enrolment is 65 strong, a student body unlike no other because it consists of, you’re not going to believe this, 23 girls and 42 boys.”

Audrey Wallace, CEO – Ministry of Finance
“There is no shortage of people want start schools and do different initiatives. We think what has been missing sometimes is that old fashioned passion and commitment, the days when you actually love what you do and it is a joy every day to show up to work and do what you love and make your contributions to your society and I think that is going to be the basic and main ingredient.”

Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“When I was approached by Mr. Osborn and Miss Osborn and of course Miss Castillo and Miss Maheia about the concept of this school I was impressed from the start. Of course it is the kind of school that we wish we can have all over this country but we are working on that to get the quality that we know that our children need and our children deserve.”

Following this morning’s opening, 65 balloons were released into the sky.