Superintendent's Weekly Message

Jan. 10, 2024

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

The community is invited to a unique opportunity to provide design input on a second high school in the San Benito High School District during two upcoming town hall sessions at Hollister High School. HMC Architects will be on hand to guide the hands-on discussion in the school library on January 18th in English and January 31st in Spanish. Attendees are asked to RSVP. Food and childcare will be provided.

Community Input



The town halls continue the District's ongoing outreach efforts that began in 2022 when the Facilities Needs Committee, a group of approximately 60 community members, met over an eight-month period to discuss topics such as school capacity challenges at Hollister High School, school construction funding, educational programming, and facilities. The FNC in 2023 developed recommendations regarding a second high school and presented them to the San Benito High School District Board of Trustees.

Your Voice Matters



This year, as Hollister High's student population has exceeded 3,400 students -- making us the 10th largest high school in California -- we have continued our efforts to protect high quality education by adding a second local high school. Long-term visioning through the Facilities Master Plan has enabled the district to complete nearly 30 major school facility projects through the generous support of our community. As we pursue all available funding opportunities for a second high school to relieve overcrowding at Hollister High, we expanded our community outreach this school year to include English- and Spanish-language town halls in August 2023, 10 elementary school listening and awareness sessions throughout the Fall, and targeted outreach to staff students and community members. In total, more than 300 attendees at a dozen events provided more than 1,300 comments about what they'd like to see in a second high school.

Next Steps

During the town halls on January 18th and 31st, our district architect will lead attendees through a hands-on activity to help envision how facilities at a new high school campus could be laid out. The session will also summarize our community outreach and information gathering efforts to date. We hope you can attend and bring along a friend, family member or neighbor to share and learn. Together we can, together we will, build a brighter future!

Sincerely,

San Benito High School District Superintendent Dr. Shawn Tennenbaum