A $1.5 Million Gift Helps Launch Cottage Health Careers Academy at San Marcos High

A $1.5 million gift is a good — no, great — gift. Especially when it goes toward building what Santa Barbara Unified Superintendent Hilda Maldonado called a bridge for San Marcos High School students into the world of health care.

On Wednesday afternoon, leaders from Cottage Health and the Santa Barbara Unified School District gathered in a small auditorium at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital to formally announce a $1.5 million donation from Cottage Health to support a new health careers training campus at San Marcos High School.

The contribution will help fund the Building Community Wellness Project, an $11 million effort to construct a mini-campus dedicated to healthcare education and expand the school’s existing wellness center. In recognition of the gift and partnership, the program will be renamed the Cottage Health Careers Academy at San Marcos High School for at least the next 20 years.

District leaders see the project not simply as a donation, but as a long-term investment in Santa Barbara’s workforce.

“Today we aren’t celebrating a donation,” Maldonado said. “We are celebrating a bridge, a bridge between the classrooms of today and the health careers of tomorrow.”

The Health Careers Academy at San Marcos has operated for roughly two decades, introducing students to fields such as patient care, nursing, and allied health through coursework and certifications beginning in 10th grade.

The new campus aims to expand that pathway significantly — both in scale and ambition. As San Marcos High School Principal Dare Holdren put it, the plan is “audacious.”

Beginning next fall, the program will admit 9th graders for the first time, growing enrollment from about 180 students to roughly 240, with additional expansion expected in the future. Students will study through Project Lead the Way, a nationally recognized biomedical science curriculum designed to prepare students for more than 200 healthcare careers.

The project also includes construction of a dedicated mini-campus designed to resemble a modern clinical environment rather than a traditional classroom building. Plans call for a reimagined wellness center on campus to support students’ physical and mental health while preparing them for careers in fields where stress and emotional strain are common.

Construction is expected to begin this summer.

Holdren said the goal is to give students a clear runway into the workforce — and, ideally, a reason to stay in Santa Barbara.

“By nurturing our local students, we both support our needs as a community, and most importantly, we’re gonna provide more of our students with the opportunity to build their careers and their lives here in Santa Barbara,” he said.

That idea — growing the region’s healthcare workforce from within — echoed throughout the event.

Cottage Health President and CEO Scott Wester said the partnership reflects a broader philosophy about the relationship between education and healthcare in a community.

“Healthcare is local,” Wester said. “Education is local, and making sure we fill the gaps for the future is so important.”

He noted that Cottage Health, which has served the region for more than 130 years, hopes the academy will help create a pipeline of future healthcare workers — students who volunteer, intern, and eventually begin careers in the local medical system.

“We want it to be more than just something such as a health careers academy,” Wester said. “We want it to be a model across the United States.”

One case in point was Karen Garcia, a clinical resource nurse at Cottage Health and an alumna of San Marcos’s original Health Careers Academy.

Garcia described how the program shaped her own career path, from high school coursework to a nursing degree and nearly two decades working at Cottage.

“The San Marcos Health Academy served as a foundation; [it] brought in my understanding of the nursing field,” Garcia said. “It opened the doors to my future.”

Community fundraising has already pushed the project close to its goal. Organizers say the campaign has raised more than $10.3 million toward the $11 million total, with contributions from local foundations, community donors, and district bond funding.

Frann Wageneck of the Royal Pride Foundation said the Cottage gift served as a catalyst for broader support.

“This does more than just fund a building,” Wageneck said. “It sends a clear message to the entire community … that we believe in these students and their peers, and that we’re willing to put our resources behind that belief.”

As a whole, speakers returned repeatedly to the same idea: training local students for healthcare careers is both a practical solution and a long-term investment in community health.

Maldonado ended her speech by addressing the students directly.

“This building is for you. We believe in you. Cottage Hospital believes in you. And we can’t wait to see you leading our community’s health care in the years to come.”