Superintendent's Weekly Message

September 27, 2023

Dear Hollister High School parents, students, staff and community:

Construction projects underway on the Hollister High School campus will improve nutrition accessibility for students and increase the seating at the home of the defending CCS and Northern California Baler softball team.

Student Union

Blach Construction has begun site work on what will become an 8,500-square-foot Student Union Building on Nash Road near West Street. It will include a cafeteria, kitchen, indoor and outdoor assembly spaces, room for students to hang out or study, and provide room for staff and community gatherings.

The $14.3 million building is being funded in part by approximately $8 million in state matching funds that the San Benito High School District received though California’s facility program funded by a state bond. The district was eligible to apply for this funding as part of California's state matching fund program. In order to receive state matching funds, school districts must contribute a local match for a project. For San Benito High School District, voter support of local bond Measures G and U provided the district the opportunity to leverage state matching funds, which otherwise would have been available to other school districts. The district is also receiving $5 million from the state through a line item in the 2023-24 budget, with the remainder of the cost covered by restricted district funds.

John Frusetta, the district’s chief budget officer, said the student union has a planned completion date of October 2024.

Convenient Location

A student union in the center of campus will create a safe and vibrant facility that is larger and more easily accessible than the current cafeteria, located on the north side of Hollister High School. A larger kitchen and dining facility will meet the needs of our continually growing campus population, which currently hovers around 3,500 and is expected to increase to approximately 3,900 students in the next four years.

Site Prep

Kristy Bettencourt, the district’s manager of maintenance, operations, transportation and facilities, said the district is currently completing a voluntary cleanup of the existing soil at that site, which used to house a two-story classroom building. The soil was found to have levels of lead so low that it can be disposed of at the local landfill, saving the district approximately $255,000 in potential remediation costs.

Facilities Master Plan Completion

The student union is the final project in Hollister High School's Facilities Master Plan, which has used a combination of voter-approved general obligation bonds, state matching funds, district funds, and the state budget allocation this year to complete construction and modernization projects throughout campus. 

Since 2015, those projects have included a Career Technical Education building, Science and Robotics classrooms, solar panels on the north and south side of campus, a new athletics and aquatics complex, multi-purpose physical education and practice fields, new tennis courts, the Visual and Performing Arts and Academics Building, and a variety of upgrades to existing classrooms.

Softball Project

The bleacher and press box upgrade project at the Ray Barragan Softball Stadium, funded by a donation from the Barragan Family, is underway and has a scheduled completion date of December 2023. The stadium’s namesake was the father of current Baler softball head coach Andrew Barragan, a Hollister High School alumnus.

The stadium project will double the seating capacity of the complex by adding bleachers, and also add a press box, sound system and lighting controls. Also being constructed by Blach, the $428,000 project is the latest in more than $1.2 million of campus projects funded through the generosity of the Barragan family, including covering the full cost of adding lights to the softball stadium.

Hollister High School’s Science and Robotics Building was formally dedicated in honor of Mary Ann Barragan during a ceremony on campus in January 2023. The longtime resident of Hollister, who along with her late husband, was the founder of Golden Memorial Insurance Services. She announced a donation of $50,000 to create a scholarship that is being awarded each year, starting with the Class of 2023 graduates.

Community Effort

The completion of the district’s Facilities Master Plan is a significant milestone for our community, which has supported Hollister High School for the past 128 years. Combined with the ongoing generosity of the Barragan family, we continue to upgrade and modernize our facilities to provide students with the best learning environment possible.

Together we can, together we will build a brighter future for all of our students.

Sincerely,

San Benito High School District Superintendent Dr. Shawn Tennenbaum