Energy Education Coordinator
San Diego County Office of Education

Kim Bess became the Energy Education Coordinator at the San Diego County Office of Education in July of 2007. The County Office supports the 42 school districts that educate the county’s 500,000 K-12 students. Kim combines her science administration experience with her concern for the future quality of life in San Diego in an energy efficiency education program supported by San Diego Gas and Electric and the California Public Utilities Commission. “E3” is developing standards-based curricula on energy efficiency education that addends the state adopted science curricula.

Prior to her work at the County, Kim was the Director of Science at the San Diego Unified School District for seven years. The district is the second largest school district in California and the eighth largest in the district in the country.  San Diego Unified enrolls 137,000 students in its 184 schools.  Students in the district speak 63 different languages in the home and one-third of the students are English learners. The district has 4,000 elementary teachers of science and 400 secondary science teachers.

During her tenure the district implemented inquiry-based science instructional materials for grades K-11.  To support the use of these materials, Ms. Bess led the development of the Science Refurbishment and Teacher Resource Center.  It is the largest science refurbishment center in the U.S. housing over 15,000 science kits. 

She is a member of the San Diego City Mayor’s Clean Water Task Force and helped develop Project SWELL to add watershed education in science for students in San Diego Unified School District.  Ms. Bess is the K-12 education chair of the San Diego Sustainability Partnership.  Kim is an executive committee board member of the San Diego Science Alliance, a community organization dedicated to supporting K-12 science education.  She was selected as the 2006 Administrator of the Year by the San Diego Science Alliance.  She brings to her position innovation and a determination to ensure that all students have a quality science education experience.