It was all cheers and kudos at the Hollister School District
Board meeting Tuesday night.
To begin the meeting, family members and friends filled the
board room to honor and applaud the district’s 2002-03 Volunteers
of the Year.
It was all cheers and kudos at the Hollister School District Board meeting Tuesday night.
To begin the meeting, family members and friends filled the board room to honor and applaud the district’s 2002-03 Volunteers of the Year.
Twelve volunteers were recognized by the Board of Trustees.
“These people represent a tremendous amount of volunteers at each school,” said Board President Carol Cochran.
After each received their award, the crowd stood and applauded the group.
Volunteers allow each school to offer extra services they wouldn’t normally be able to, according to a letter sent to each recipient from the district.
The Volunteers of the Year are: Adelina Bustamante at Calaveras School; Donna Lewis at Cerra Vista; Gabilan Hill School’s Dee Carruth; Bruce Green from Ladd Lane School; Nellie Fernandez at R.O. Hardin School; Marguerite Maze Middle School’s Trudy Kelley and Carruth; Darcy Rodriguez at Sunnyslope School; Cory Bergen, Dorothy Flickenger and Cheryl Weir from Rancho San Justo Middle School; and Susan Chizek from the district office.
Also, Superintendent Judith Barranti informed Fernandez that she was selected to represent the district at the county’s third annual National Philanthropic Luncheon on Nov. 14. The event is organized by the Community Foundation of San Benito County and Fernandez will be joining 250 guests.
During the public comment portion, Sunnyslope Principal Melinda Scott highlighted two cash donations to the school. One was from Intel Corp. for $1,200 through the company’s Volunteer Matching Grant Program. When an employee volunteers at a school, Intel matches the volunteering with a donation. In 2002, Intel donated more than $1.4 million as part of the program.
The other donation was from Debbie Lewis. Lewis has a tradition that her children collect birthday money and donate it to a charity. This year, the donation is for second-grade teachers at Sunnyslope, most likely in the form of gift certificates to Staples, Scott said.
In other business:
– Anita Franchi, director of curriculum and instruction, presented three reports on the district’s summer school program, English Language Learner placement and the district’s 2002-03 Academic Performance Index (API).
During the summer, 1,241 kindergarten through seventh-grade and 150 preschool students participated in summer school. Most of the students are part of the regular instruction, but classes also focused on special education and English-language-development students. While most students showed improvement after summer school, district officials stressed the importance of having enough teachers to teach summer school.
Only one school in the district – Rancho – did not make its API growth target for 2002-03. Gabilan Hills met its schoolwide growth target, but not its comparable improvement growth target – which measures how each of the subgroups fared on the tests.
– In closed session, the Board discussed personnel items and met with labor negotiators, but took no action.
– The Board approved 5-0 the authorization for the district to waive a requirement that sets the caseload for resource specialists at 28 students. Five resource specialists have more than 28 students.
– The Board approved 5-0 entering into a three-year contract with RJR recycling for garbage and recycling services at the district’s eight schools and district office. RJR was the lower bid with $5,866.72 per month. Hollister’s Waste Management bid $6,057.53.
The next Board meeting is Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. at the district office, 2690 Cienega Road.
