Stephanie Rice, Benicia Unified School District’s new coordinator of education (Courtesy photo)

At Thursday’s school board meeting, the Benicia Unified School District welcomed Stephanie Rice as the new coordinator of education services. In this role, she will be working at all grade levels and curricular areas to support instructional programs and practices at each school.

Rice graduated from Benicia High School in 1992, attended Sonoma State University and the University of Southern California and has a master’s degree in education. She has been an educator for 18 years, 16 of which have been with BUSD, including a period as a fourth-grade teacher at Robert Semple Elementary School. For the past two years, she was a Teacher On Special Assignment, with a particular focus on math and science. She helped implement the district’s current elementary math program, promoted vertical articulation with Benicia Middle School math and science teachers, assisted with the adoption of Next Generation Science Standards at Benicia and Liberty High and worked closely with Benicia High’s math and science departments.

Additionally, Rice was also a camp coordinator at 2016’s C-STEM Girls in Robotic Leadership Camp, in which female Benicia Middle Schoolers got to spend a week learning lessons in robotics and coding and even got to go on an excursion to UC Davis.

Rice has two daughters, a fifth-grader at Robert Semple and a seventh-grader at Benicia Middle.

At the school board meeting, the trustees unanimously voted 4-0— Peter Morgan was absent—to promote Rice to her new position.

“I am a firm believer of knowing where people are coming from and building relationships when you’re working with people,” she said at the meeting. “I stand behind our district. I could not imagine working anywhere else. This is my home, and it has my heart. I pledge to you that I am going to do my very best to support our students through supporting our teachers, our administrators, our support staff and our parent community because it’s so important to work together as a team, and I’m just really excited to start this next step, and I appreciate all your support.”

“We are very excited about the opportunity of Mrs. Rice working with our staff in a support role to help provide the best education for our students,” the district said in a statement.

Sharing is caring!