Jennifer Coile, San Benito High School Joint Union District - KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News

Jennifer Coile, San Benito High School Joint Union District

Party/Affiliation: n/a
Current Job: Grant Writer/Project Manager - Affordable Housing

Top 3 Priorities if Elected:

COLLABORATE WITH CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY - MONTEREY BAY 

Our High School has not taken advantage of numerous opportunities for collaboration with students and faculty at CSUMB. Undergraduates are required to engage in service learning for two semesters, one of them related to their major. Seaside High School benefited from hundreds of hours of Information Technology students serving as Tech Tutors to students, debugging machines, conducting teacher training, installing new software and hardware, for example. 30% of the technology help requests at San Benito High School are not fixed within one week – 10% take one month or more. I have mentioned the availability of Tech Tutors to the SHED Superintendent and at Board of Trustees meetings at least three times, but no follow-up. Students in the new Master's Program in the School of Social Work might be able to gain valuable experience assisting students with personal and academic problems, considering the School's counselor-student ratio is one per 700 students. Our students are 42% Migrant; they need to mingle with college students as mentors and role models in a range of academic fields. Field trips to cultural events at the World Theater or the Capstone Project Presentations would be very beneficial to San Benito students. CSUMB is a 45 minute drive away.

INCREASE PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES ENTERING FOUR YEAR COLLEGES FROM CURRENT TWENTY PERCENT 

Community colleges are an affordable path to a four year degree however statistics show that only 50% of students finish within six years – so then a 24 year old is facing two+ more years of college.  Why not encourage students to go to the University of California or California State University to get their degree done in four years, by age 22?  In October 2010, the District Board of Trustees voted to eliminate the position of Career Center Director and reduce the number of counselors. I proposed to draw from the $4.7M unrestricted reserves to restore funding to those positions. Applying to college costs money – for the test fees and application fees so I propose work with organizations like the Opportunity Fund, San Benito Community Foundation, and local banks to engage 9^th graders in a financial literacy program to create savings accounts for the senior year college admissions expenses.

PROVIDE FUNDING TO HOLLISTER UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT TO OPEN THE LOCKED LIBRARIES FOR STUDENTS IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH EIGHTH GRADE

The academic success of students at San Benito High School is dependent on the preparation that students receive in kindergarten through eighth grade. Due to budget cuts and union rules about access to the libraries, the Hollister School District has locked the doors on its six elementary school libraries and two middle school libraries. Extensive research has documented the importance of libraries on student literacy, test scores, and cultivating a love of learning. The San Benito High School District has a $4.7 million surplus/reserve that is unrestricted i.e. not required to be spent on capital projects or specific programs. I believe $100,000 should be used to facilitate staffing at the Hollister School District to open up each library one day/week.