Demographic Information
Yerba Buena High School rests in the heart of East San Jose, within a larger area that is often referred to by outsiders as Silicon Valley. While the dot.com tech-companies of Silicon Valley make it one of the richest areas in the country, East San Jose is known locally for its ethnic, low-income population. A grade 9-12 high school, Yerba Buena has achieved an academic performance index (API) score of 685 1, a relatively low performance in comparison to target number of 800 or above for academic proficiency. The most recent information collected on our school shows a majority of the population is socioeconomically disadvantaged 2. Sixty-five percent of the student population qualifies for the free or reduced lunch program, but this number may actually be higher 3.
Because of the current emphasis on standardized test scores, most on-campus programs focus solely on academics, and there is little time or funds leftover to allocate to nutrition education. When students are given a choice over what to eat, most prefer to pay for bagged chips from the vending machine than accept a "healthy" school lunch, which for most of the students on campus, as stated before, is provided for free.
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