Randles, Lee, Reyes & Reese: The educational future of Evergreen Valley College

A lot has changed over the past several years regarding the vacant 27 acres at Evergreen Valley College. The San Jose Evergreen Community College District (SJECCD) is hosting a Zoom community meeting at 10 a.m. Saturday and it’s an opportunity for residents to discuss a reset of the SJECCD’s educational policies for the future uses of the vacant 27 acres. The last community meeting on the vacant 27 acres in February 2018 was very well attended.

SJECCD has terminated its land lease negotiations for a standard commercial development with Republic Urban. However, the district has a new approach to the vacant 27 acres as it prepares for future public/private partnerships with educational opportunities.

This meeting is an opportunity to share your vision and ideas on how the vacant 27 acres should be utilized in the future for the benefit of education in the San Jose, East San Jose and Evergreen communities.

Approximately 17,000 SJECCD residents attend Foothill-DeAnza and West Valley community colleges, which have greater numbers of course offerings and programs than SJECCD does.

A variety of folks from San Jose, East San Jose and Evergreen and at least two SJECCD trustees have said that SJECCD underserves the community.

The brutal impacts of COVID- 19 have made it crystal clear that SJECCD needs to do more for our severely struggling East San Jose students.

SJECCD has excellent classes and programs. However, SJECCD needs to provide more classes and programs to meet the needs of current students and students who must leave the district to get their educational needs and goals met.

The opportunities for the community’s ideas to be sincerely considered by the SJECCD are greatly enhanced by Evergreen resident Maria Fuentes serving as president of the Board of Trustees, as well as the new trustees elected last year and within the past several years.

This is our opportunity for early community engagement with SJECCD to have our ideas given proper consideration in the district’s new planning efforts for the future uses of the vacant 27 acres on behalf of meeting its educational mission.

You can tune into the Zoom meeting about the 27 acres this Saturday by clicking here.

Sandi and Rex Randles, Wes Lee, Daniel Reyes and Robert Reese are community members who volunteer their time on educational and land use issues.