For the 30 families with children enrolled at More Tomorrow Primary School, a small rural campus in Belize’s Cayo District serving students from early childhood through sixth grade, the start of the 2026 academic year has been defined by persistent anxiety. While Belize’s Minister of Education Francis Fonseca has offered a short-term guarantee that the campus will not close immediately, he has stopped short of reassuring the community that the school will survive long-term, leaving parents and local leaders in limbo.
In comments made to local outlet News 5 on September 11, 2026, Fonseca confirmed that the ministry has already taken steps to address immediate staffing gaps at the school, adding one new educator to the existing team of two – one of whom currently fills the dual role of principal and classroom teacher. The ministry’s short-term plan calls for growing the total teaching staff to three full-time positions, a move meant to stabilize operations for the coming months. But even as the government rolls out these incremental adjustments, Fonseca acknowledged that core questions about the school’s long-term viability have not been resolved.
“We have put in place measures to tackle the immediate challenges we face here,” Fonseca explained. “But we cannot avoid taking a hard look at the long-term outlook. The question of whether it is sustainable to keep this school operating at its current location remains unanswered, and we will continue our review of that question.”
The minister’s latest update comes just 10 days after the Ministry of Education first confirmed that no final closure decision had been made, amid widespread rumors that the small campus would be shuttered. At that time, multiple reports indicated that education officials were weighing a range of contingency plans, including organizing free bus transportation to move all More Tomorrow Primary students to a larger, more established campus nearby if the review finds keeping the current school open is unfeasible.
Local leaders, however, are already rallying to save the community school. Michael Myvette, chairman of the local village council, told reporters that the entire local governing body stands ready to provide any support needed to maintain operations at More Tomorrow Primary, emphasizing the school’s critical role in serving the small, tight-knit rural community that relies on it for accessible local education. For parents, that leaves a tense waiting game: while the doors are open for now, no one can say how long that will last.