■ ‘School within school’ instructor in recruitment push crucial to funding

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Benicia High School’s ECH20 Academy — the program that aims to prepare students for careers in “green” technology fields — is ramping up its recruitment drive for new students this week.

Josh Bradley, coordinator of the “school within a school,” will begin the next round of recruiting with a meeting Thursday with high school freshmen, who are eligible to attend the Career Technical Education academy in the fall. On Jan. 26, he will speak with sophomores.

Helping Bradley promote the academy: its current members.

The juniors who have already been taking ECH2O classes are “so well organized they will be able to give a testimonial to the students they are hoping to recruit,” Bradley said. “I think it is critical to have the new kids hear how amazing the academy is from the older kids.”

Following his meetings with students, Bradley will host a parent recruitment meeting Feb. 9 from 5:30-7 p.m. in the school’s Performing Arts Building.

The recruitment drive is crucial: Because the academy, which launched in August, is funded by a grant from California Partnership Academies, it must meet a minimum student participation threshold.

Like all CPA-funded programs, ECH2O is a three-year program for grades 10-12 that incorporates integrated academic and career technical education, business partnerships, mentoring and internships.

That means ECH2O students do more than sit in a classroom and theorize. “We have projects going on all around the community,” Bradley said. “We participated in the Coastal Cleanup with all 58 students. We have a community project going on right now out at the Bello Ranch.”

The Bello Ranch project has two tiers. The first is to test for water toxicity. “They have springs that bubble up out of the ground all over the property, and that’s how they water their livestock,” Bradley said. “What we’re doing is testing that water to make sure it’s good.”

He said the second tier involves constructing a trough for the livestock to drink fresh water from, as opposed to drinking it out of the ground — “because we know what cows do all over the ground.”

Such community projects lead to hands-on projects in the classroom, Bradley pointed out. “Even today we set up new toxicity testing for them in the lab for the environmental science class. These kids are hands-on 24/7.”

That, too, is in conjunction with CPA requirements: that they be more than 50 percent hands-on. “We are running a full analytical lab in my classroom,” Bradley said. “So the students roll in every day, and they have cultures to maintain, water quality to take on the animals. We’re doing toxicity testing on a daily basis for Bello.”

ECH2O students have been sought for advice on school district projects, as well.

They have been involved with the planning of upgrades at Benicia High’s football field, after Principal Gary Jensen and project organizer Jill Ray sought their input. And they have also been involved in the district office/Liberty High School remodel at 350 West K St.

Because funding for the remodel came from the Valero-Good Neighbor Steering Committee agreement, one of the stipulations was that students had to be involved in the process, Bradley said.

“They have to include students from the academy, and from Liberty High, in every phase of this project. So we’re part of that project,” he said. Seven students from the academy sat in on architectural planning meetings and “gave advice in regards to what they were considering. That was really interesting.”

Bradley said he knows ECH2O is on the right track because it has a business advisory board that includes people from local businesses like Larry Asera, chairman and founder of Asera Group Inc., a global energy and environmental technology company.

“They give us the relevant information of what is going on right now. They have looked at the curriculum for the academy, and they have said that we are right on track with what they expect their young professionals to learn,” Bradley said.

“That curriculum has been developed by the teaching team at the Academy,” he said, crediting teachers Brandon Andrews, Edward Coyne, Teresa Finn, Carl Kittrell, Andrea Jenest and LeeAnn Aidt.

For more information contact Josh Bradley at jbradley@beniciaunified.org.