Schools

A measure asking the voters for $248 million worth of bonds to upgrade Gavilan College's main campus, as well as its Coyote Valley and San Benito County satellite sites, will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Two of the four members who sit on the Gavilan Joint Community College District Board of Trustees and whose districts run through San Benito County will not seek re-election in November.

Gavilan College announced July 11 the selection of Denee Pescarmona as the local community college’s new vice president of academic affairs.

As many as five new faces could be seated on the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s governing dais come November, with two trustees saying they will not seek re-election, two others undecided and another prematurely resigning prior to his term’s completion.

Trustee Anna Song will act as the Vice President of the Santa Clara County Board of Education, after being unanimously voted in by her colleagues June 20.

With three school board members second-guessing their prior decision in May to include two charter schools in a parcel tax resolution, Morgan Hill Unified School District’s governing body pulled a complete 180 and withdrew the proposal at a June 19 meeting.

Morgan Hill resident Jaylene Baltazar, a sophomore at Valley Christian High School, was accepted as a Delegate to the Congress of Future Medical Leaders and will attend the June 25-27 conference in Lowell, Massachusetts.

After a six-month delay, plus a change in the nearly $40 million work order, the Britton Middle School Transformation Project finally broke ground June 5 in front a modest crowd of Morgan Hill Unified School District staff, school site faculty, school board trustees and Bobcat student band members.

Morgan Hill school officials want to scrap their plans to place an education parcel tax on the Nov. 6 ballot, according to the recently released June 19 school board agenda.

More than 600 local teenagers were handed their high school diplomas in separate commencement ceremonies at three Morgan Hill Unified School District high schools, as well as one local private school, by the end of last week.District officials, school board trustees and school site faculty, along with families and friends of graduates, were on hand to share in the special moment for the graduating Class of 2018.“As the parent of one of our high school graduates, I thought the graduation ceremony was a great culminating event to celebrate 13 years of hard work and achievement,” said school board vice president Mary Patterson. “For all of our high school seniors and their families and friends, the graduation ceremonies offered the right amount of celebration of the past and inspiration for the future.”Live Oak High School’s 2018 class consisted of 221 graduates; Ann Sobrato High School had a graduating class of about 350; and Central High School’s graduating class numbered 45.The Acorn co-valedictorians were Cera Huffman and Isaac Muniz, and the 2018 salutatorian was Ashley Cowell.The Bulldog valedictorian was Tai Nguyen, and the 2018 co-salutatorians were Raymond Bui and Amanda Jackson.Central’s Student of the Year was Vikash Jee.Channing Bushman, Sammy Varma, Nicholas Wilson and Isabella Rickard all gave inspirational speeches at Oakwood School’s 10th graduation ceremony, which included 42 students.