In the town of Sumidero, municipality of Limonar, province of Matanzas, a teacher identified as Idalmis set up the portal of her own home as an improvised classroom to welcome her students at the start of the 2026-2027 school year, which began on September 1.
The reason is the dilapidated state of the primary school Rigoberto Corcho López, the only educational institution in the town, whose conditions make it unsafe for students and teachers.
According to reports from parents, the school's bathrooms are closed, the wooden carpentry has been destroyed by moths and termites, and part of the ceiling has collapsed due to the advanced deterioration of the beams.
The photographs of the journalist Christian Arbolaez, who documented the case, show the inside of the building with the roof open to the sky, walls with dampness and peeling paint, doors without handles, and a fallen tree around the premises.
Parents claim that they reported the situation to the Ministry of Education before the start of classes, but up to this moment, they have not received any response or solution.
In the face of institutional silence, Idalmis made the only decision available to her: to open her portal so that her students would not miss the start of the course.
"Her gesture speaks of dedication and commitment. But the entrance of a teacher's home cannot become the solution to the neglect of a school," Arbolaez wrote when sharing the images.
The case of Sumidero is not an exception, but rather a reflection of the structural crisis affecting education in Cuba. The 2026-2027 school year started with a national deficit of 24,000 teachers, equivalent to 12.5% of the planned positions, and a national teaching coverage of 73%.
More than 380,000 students started the school year without a designated teacher assigned, according to data collected by Infobae.
In Matanzas, the teacher shortage exceeds 2,000 positions, and the municipality of Limonar was identified by provincial authorities at the end of August as one of the areas facing challenges in the distribution of school uniforms, of which only 12% was guaranteed at the national level at the beginning of the school year.
The deterioration of school infrastructure has caused serious incidents in recent months: in April, two children were injured after a ceiling panel fell in a Cuban school, and in Matanzas, the issue of schools in poor condition has been repeatedly documented.
Meanwhile, the official discourse emphasized that the school year began with "the conditions created." The Communist Party of Cuba even described the start of the school year as "another act of heroism", implicitly acknowledging the adverse conditions in which teachers and students must operate.
The parents of Sumidero do not demand heroism; they insist on the urgent repair of the Rigoberto Corcho López school and on dignified and safe conditions for their children.
"Are these the 'created conditions' that were so widely discussed to start the school year?" Arbolaez asked as he concluded his report.
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