The San Benito High School Board of Trustees voted 4 to 1 last
week to cut summer school offerings for students looking for summer
enrichment, or to get ahead in their studies, but will offer about
100 more seats than the initial proposal suggested.
Hollister – The San Benito High School Board of Trustees voted 4 to 1 last week to cut summer school offerings for students looking for summer enrichment, or to get ahead in their studies, but will offer about 100 more seats than the initial proposal suggested.
“We’ve been offering a wrap-around, year long program,” said SBHS Superintendent Jean Burns Slater at Wednesday night’s meeting. “But we’ve only been funded for 180 days.”
The state will fund 100 percent of all programs designed to draw kids who are performing poorly in school back on track to passing the California High School Exit Exam and getting their diploma. They generally are students who need more credits or haven’t passed the exam after a few tries, or younger students who score at Basic or below on their Standardized Testing and Reporting exams.
However, the state will only provide the money for about 5 percent of any school’s student body to take summer “enrichment” courses – in the case of SBHS, about 150 students. As a result, SBHS was forced to absorb about $155,000 in programming costs last year for students who were taking summer courses to free up their schedules during the regular school year for an extra elective, or simply looking for something to do over the summer.
Altogether, last year SBHS provided just more than $224,000 in summer school programming _ $69,000 of which was paid for by the state.
Though initially SBHS had intended to serve 150 students looking for enrichment courses, Trustees decided Wednesday to offer 250 seats and eat the cost of the extra 100 students.
Last year, 1,700 students enrolled in summer school, but by the end of the six-week session, fewer than 1,000 remained.
For those students who want to take enrichment courses but are unable to make it into the 250 seat cap, SBHS is exploring the idea of partnering with Gavilan College, possibly offering college-credit courses on the SBHS campus. The idea of fee-based classes was also discussed, and was not a popular choice.
“I always have a problem with fee-based classes,” said Trustee Evelyn Muro, who eventually voted against the cuts. “It creates second-class citizens – those who can’t afford the class versus those who can.”
The board will be voting in the future how best to determine which students will be allowed to take enrichment courses over the summer.
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637- 5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
