PRESS RELEASE

Statistics Institute and Instituto Nueva Escuela manage to include Montessori schools and questions about the impact of Hurricane Maria in an important school survey

The 2019 edition of the YRBSS for Puerto Rico included students from Montessori schools for the first time and asked about the effects of the hurricane on these students

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute joined forces with the Instituto Nueva Escuela, achieving for the first time that Montessori schools are included in the 2019 edition of the survey Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YBSS). The YRBSS is a survey conducted every two years to students in grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 across the United States and its jurisdictions, including Puerto Rico. The questions cover various topics related to students' health and risk behaviors, and as a result, statistics are produced on bullying, electronic harassment, violent behavior, sexual behavior, drug use and on students' eating habits, among others.

In addition, it was possible to include five additional questions, related to the impact of Hurricane Maria on students, from all the schools participating in the study in Puerto Rico. Approximately 1,498 students from public schools in Puerto Rico participated in the self-administered survey, and of these, a total of 110 students belonged to Montessori schools, of which 53% were male, 47% female, and 27.2%, 54.5%, 16.0% and 2.3% were in grades 9, 10, 11 and 12, respectively. Although it is expected that by the end of this year the Institute of Statistics and the Instituto Nueva Escuela will produce an official and detailed statistical report on the results of this survey, here are some preliminary results regarding hurricane questions in students under the Montessori philosophy:

• 80.4% of students reported that they spent a month or more without electricity in their homes.
• 98.9% of students reported feeling sad or hopeless after the impact of Hurricane Maria and due to the lack of electricity.
• 47.1% of students reported that they spent a month or more without drinking water service in their homes.
• 100% of the students reported feeling sad or hopeless after the impact of Hurricane Maria and due to the lack of drinking water.
• 77.7% of students reported that they were unable to attend school for a month or more because it was closed or unable to reach or access it.

“These preliminary results show us the enormous impact that the passage of Hurricane Maria had on these Montessori school students. In previous editions, these students, under the Montessori philosophy, were left out of this important survey. However, thanks to the teamwork of both institutes, we have been able to make them visible,” said Dr. Orville M. Disdier, executive director of the Institute of Statistics.

For their part, Dr. Ana María García Blanco, executive director of the Instituto Nueva Escuela, and Mr. Cesar Ostolaza of the Evaluation and Research Division said: “We are very happy with the invitation from Dr. Orville M. Disdier to participate in this study. It is important to have reliable data in the face when making decisions about the practices and services we will provide to our students. Their voices are essential in defining the public policies for which we are choosing. It is imperative to take into account the emotional state of young people, especially based on the natural and social phenomena they have been through when it comes to “building” a school. It is with them and from them that we must build it.”

The Instituto Nueva Escuela is a non-profit entity that seeks to transform the public education system in Puerto Rico through Montessori philosophy and methodology. For its part, the Statistics Institute of Puerto Rico is a governmental entity with fiscal and administrative autonomy with the mission of coordinating the statistical production service of government entities. To learn more about the Instituto Nueva Escuela you can access the website: www.inepr.com. To learn more about the Institute of Statistics, you can access the website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. On social media through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Contacts: Idia M. Martínez, R‐28, 787‐603‐3200, and Lourdes Burgos, R‐27, 787‐562‐2932

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PRESS RELEASE
DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

February 15, 2018

AUTHORIZED STATEMENTS BY DR. MARIO MARAZZI-SANTIAGO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE PUERTO RICO INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS, ON COMMUNICATION FROM THE FISCAL OVERSIGHT BOARD TO THE GOVERNOR REGARDING THE REORGANIZATION OF THE STATISTICAL FUNCTIONS OF THE PUERTO RICAN GOVERNMENT

We appreciate the statements of the Fiscal Oversight Board regarding the desirability of maintaining the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute as a public instrument, independent and separate from the Government of Puerto Rico.

In addition, the Board made several recommendations, some of which we wish to comment on. In the first instance, he proposed modernizing and updating Puerto Rico's statistical functions and consolidating them into the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute. We share the concern of the Board and the Government that the fragmentation of statistical functions results in costly and ineffective processes. We are under orders from the Government to design a reorganization plan dedicated to statistical functions that achieve this objective. It's never too late to start working together, collaboratively, to achieve shared and desired goals.

Second, the Board joined the expressions of the bipartisan congressional Task Force of Puerto Rico, also created under the federal PROMESA Act, to the effect that the Institute must be allocated a larger budget, aligned with the important responsibilities it exercises. This recommendation represents an extraordinary opportunity for the Government to comply, for the first time, with the budgetary allocation approved for the Institute in its Organic Law.

Third, the Board recommended that the Institute's independence be protected from political intervention. This is an extremely sensitive issue that every Government we have worked with has had to confront, know, understand, process, accept and eventually take advantage of. At the moment, the Institute oversees the statistical work of the Executive Branch. In any other area, oversight functions would not be allowed to be disrupted. For example, one of the baseball teams would never be allowed to choose or change or influence the referee of a game. Why do we think with statistics that we can, should and is it even normal?

We all suffer from the same disinformation after decades of politicized and underfunded deterioration of the statistical functions of the Government of Puerto Rico. Finally, for 10 years we have had a new instrument, the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute, whose main purpose is to pave the way to complete, reliable statistics with fast and universal access. Let's take advantage of it.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes (787) 688-0401

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PRESS RELEASE

DR. MARIO MARAZZI-SANTIAGO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

INSTITUTE WILL CONTINUE TO INVEST IN PLANNING BOARD STATISTICS

The decision makes it easier for the Planning Board to comply with the methodological changes

required for Puerto Rico's economy to be included in that of the United States

San Juan, PR, July 6, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) announced today that its Board of Directors recently approved continuing to financially support the work of the Roadmap for the Modernization of Puerto Rico's Economic Accounts, work plan agreed between the Planning Board (JP) and the Institute for necessary improvements to Puerto Rico's macroeconomic accounting methodologies.

East Roadmap includes the need to invest in the information systems used by JP to prepare Puerto Rico's economic accounting statistics. In fact, the Institute has been investing in these systems for more than a year. Specifically, in 2016 it was entrusted to the company Wovenware the migration of information systems from a technology based on Oracle products to one based on Microsoft SQL. This is because Oracle discontinued technological support for Softwares that JP uses, which caused processing problems in that agency.

The recent decision, for example, extends this agreement to the next fiscal year, during which it is expected that Wovenware complete final phases 3 and 4 for which the Institute will be investing more than $300,000. The project, which began in 2016 and is expected to end in 2019, will allow the database to be updated automatically, duplicate data to be eliminated and processes to be improved as well as the accessibility of JP statistics.

“As part of our mission to objectively support public administration, the Institute's Board of Directors has done its part to continue the necessary improvements in government, at times of great uncertainty. It is also a project supported by the employees of the JP and the President of the JP that will allow this agency to evolve and for which we are investing more than 10% of the Institute's budget,” said the executive director of the Institute, Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago.

“It is worth noting that this project implements some of the methodological changes adopted by the Institute's Board of Directors in the Resolution No. 2014-02, so that Puerto Rico's national accounts are more reliable, comparable and quickly and universally accessible. At the same time, we are complying with the federal government's requirements for Puerto Rico's economy to be included in the statistics of the United States economy,” added Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), entitled Puerto Rico: Limited Federal Data Hinder Analysis of Economic Condition and Dol's 2016 Overtime Rule, found that the lack of federal data on Puerto Rico's economy had made it difficult to analyze the impact of a labor standard proposed by former President of the United States, Barack Obama, on overtime pay for certain types of jobs.

“For statistics on the Puerto Rico economy to be included in those of the United States economy, the Government of Puerto Rico must do its part as well. Since 2011, the federal Government has written down the methodological changes that need to be made to the Planning Board. It is important that this agenda be continued. The Institute's Board of Directors has done its part, because it has the expertise, professionalism, seriousness and independence of judgment that are necessary to understand that this is an agenda that is too important to be derailed,” said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access. The Institute has in its inventory, accessible through https://estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through https://data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: https://www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of the State Data Center (SDC) of Puerto Rico, the Institute manages the SDC portal, which contains the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey (Puerto Rico Community Survey) and official statistics on Puerto Rico's 10-year population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr.

For more information you can visit our website: https://estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook accounts (https://www.facebook.com/estadisticas.pr), Twitter (https://twitter.com/estadisticaspr) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/instituto-de-estadisticas-de-puerto-rico).

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes (787) 688-0401

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