page_title: Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre de Pichilemu
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre de Pichilemu / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Niñas estudiantes de la Escuela Doctor Eugenio Díaz Lira (actual Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre) de Pichilemu participando del desfile cívico patriótico, realizado cada 18 de septiembre, en los años 1960.
context_page_description: Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre de Pichilemu, often shortened to Preciosa Sangre, is a coeducational Roman Catholic private state-subsidized day school, serving students in preschool through twelfth grade, located in the commune of Pichilemu, Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region, Chile.
  It was founded in April 1947 by the Chilean Congregation of the Precious Blood as a girls' school under the name of Escuela Doctor Eugenio Díaz Lira. The school has been fully coeducational since March 1979, and was renamed to its current name in 1986. Cardenal Caro Province newspaper El Expreso de la Costa declared Preciosa Sangre to be "the best school in Pichilemu" based on the results of 2011 standardized tests, while O'Higgins Region newspaper El Rancagüino called the school "a regional icon". It is the largest school in Pichilemu, with 534 students in the 2015 school year.
  The school offers students several extracurricular activities, in the sports, religious and humanistic areas. Cheer C.P.S., Preciosa Sangre's cheerleading squad, has won several national competitions, and has also participated in two international ones.
context_section_description: After the commune of Pichilemu was officially created in 1891, Agustín Ross Edwards, a wealthy Chilean writer, member of parliament, government minister and politician, wanted to turn the town into "a touristic place, an elite resort, collecting the most important characteristics of European places, which would make it unique." For this purpose, he constructed a hotel, a post office, a park, among other structures and buildings, which attracted wealthy families from Chile and Argentina. One of those families was that of Maria Luisa Lira Errázuriz, widow of Wenceslao Díaz Gallegos, a well-known physician; Lira, with her ten children, came from her El Olívar estate near San Fernando, and stayed at Ross' facilities in Pichilemu in several occasions.
  As years passed, Lira's family decided to visit other beach resorts; however, one of Lira's children, Eugenio, decided to continue visiting Pichilemu, and after he completed his medicine studies in 1904, he constructed a summer house near the center of the town. Eugenio Díaz Lira had a close relationship with several Catholic presbyters and bishops, whom he invited to his summer residence. During his summer stays in Pichilemu, Díaz Lira also created the first medical center in the town called San Rafael. However, he fell ill, and died on 12 June 1945 in Santiago, at age 65.
  After his death, Díaz Lira's wife and his daughters decided to donate his summer residence to the Chilean Congregation of the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Under the request of the General Superioress of the Congregation Mother María Úrsula Montes Rojas, the house was turned into a free girls' school, which was founded in April 1947 under the name of Escuela de Niñas Particular N° 16 Doctor Eugenio Díaz Lira (English: Doctor Eugenio Díaz Lira 16th Girls' Private School), in  honour of the late physician. The school's main goal was to "educate girls in Catholic values," with the "necessary training for their insertion in the society as Christian mothers and workers with a solid Human Christian formation." The school's first principal was Mother María Teresa Corvalán Guzmán.
  The school was recognized by the Ministry of Education of Chile by Decree 12,946, on 31 December 1954. It became a coeducational school in March 1979. During the commemoration of the centennial of the Chilean Congregation of the Precious Blood, the school was renamed to Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre, a name which "represented better the school's founders", on 14 November 1986. The school was authorized to dictate secondary education classes on 30 January 1995, and started doing so that same year, with the first class graduating in 1998.
  In 2012, Governor of Cardenal Caro Province Julio Ibarra Maldonado announced the Colegio de la Preciosa Sangre, in addition to several other high schools in the province, would host professional institute IPG (Instituto Profesional IPG), which would let at least 300 people from Pichilemu obtain a technical degree. Also during that year, the school's oldest building, which hosted the preschool classes, was demolished because of the damage it suffered from the 2010 Chile earthquake, and was re-constructed; the new building was inaugurated on 10 September 2012.
caption: Students of the Escuela Doctor Díaz Lira representing the school in a September 18th Parade
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