Schools

With cramped weight and wrestling facilities, the San Benito High Board of Trustees took one of the first steps in fixing the problem on June 12 by OK’ing detailed blueprints for a new building.

Now that San Benito High School's 2013 graduation ceremony is over, Juan Robledo will be packing up 38 years worth of history. He has formal portraits of himself with each year's president and vice president of the Associated Student Body lining the walls of his classroom, dating back almost two decades.

Jayna Navarro, a fifth-grade student at Sunnyslope Elementary School, has just 10 percent sight in one of her eyes and is blind in the other. She had a vision of working with her fellow classmates to raise money for The Seeing Eye – a foundation that breeds, raises and trains seeing-eye dogs for the blind with the support of donations.

Hollister School District trustees Thursday night reversed course on a prior cancellation to contracts with the city – over use of facilities for recreation programs – and directed staff officials to revive negotiations on a new agreement.

It looks as though the relatively new Hollister school board doesn’t have much patience for a long-held partnership with the city involving the rental of facilities for recreation programs. And it appears that trustees are concerned about a range of “little issues” that have accumulated through the years rather than one primary concern, according to the school board president.

The 630 San Benito High School students who gathered in the Mattson gym Friday morning bustled with excitement as they prepared to walk out onto the playing fields for graduation. Many of the students reminisced about their favorite parts of high school, but most of them were already looking toward what the future holds.

A Hollister official warned Monday that an agreement between the city and Hollister School District – for use of several school fields – was in limbo due to financial considerations.

San Benito High School student Nick De Hoyos took third place in the 2013 Congressional Art Competition for his charcoal drawing, “Homeless in the Land of Prosperity.” His artwork will hang in Congressman Sam Farr's Salinas office for the year.

The second step towards bringing a new charter school to the Morgan Hill Unified School District was completed Tuesday as the Board of Education hosted a public hearing “to determine the level of support for the petition by teachers, employees of the district and parents/guardians.”

Isabel “Izzy” Quistian, a Gavilan College theater arts major and active member of the Associated Student Body, was awarded the Karl S. Pister Leadership Opportunity Program Scholarship.