Students and instructor urge board to preserve SBI honors program as administrators propose CTE pathway options

Dozens of current and former students and SBI program alumni filled the meeting to press the board not to convert the School of Business & Industry honors track into a general-education offering or to weaken the small-cohort model that students say provides mentorship, rigorous coursework and large scholarship returns.

Multiple student speakers — including Shauna Bruner, Mikaela George, Adrianna Jackson, Kayla McNish and others — described SBI as a selective honors pathway that teaches long-form writing, public speaking and entrepreneurship and provides networking, internships and scholarship opportunities. “SBI is an honors prep program for college and entrepreneurship,” Shauna Bruner told trustees. “If you turn SBI into a general education class, it will have to be dumbed down.”

Brianna Embry Banks, the SBI instructor, said SBI reaches students who are often underserved by traditional programming and argued the program’s community, mentorship and real-world opportunities cannot be replicated by a generic general-education course. Students and alumni recounted high scholarship yields, leadership development, and supports for students in crisis.

Administration said it supports preserving an honors track while also exploring pathways to expand career-and-technical-education (CTE) opportunities and certifications that could reach more students. The superintendent and other administrators described a goal of preserving SBI’s honors offerings while building a broader CTE entrepreneurship pathway for additional students; in response to the vocal public comment, the board pulled two agenda items related to a proposed entrepreneurship CTE application (items 5.1 and 5.9) for further discussion to allow more stakeholder engagement.

Why it matters: Students and community speakers framed the issue as program identity — preserving an honors, small-cohort model that students and teachers say drives outcomes — versus administrators’ operational goal of expanding CTE access and drawing state CTE funding. The board acknowledged the tension and opted to pause and seek more information.

What’s next: Administration will meet with SBI leadership and student representatives and bring a clarified proposal back to the board; the pulled items will be reconsidered once administrators and program leaders present options that preserve the honors track and lay out how a CTE pathway would be structured.