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It was standing room only at the Sequoia Union High School District’s Dec. 10 board meeting, as about 100 TIDE Academy parents, teachers and students showed up trying to protect their school from potential closure.
The school board heard from 52 public commenters, who called on the district to stop its closure process during a tense and contentious meeting.
Last month, a board subcommittee including trustees Richard Ginn and Mary Beth Thompson asked Superintendent Crystal Leach to develop a plan to consider closing TIDE, citing declining enrollment and the district’s structural deficit.
The committee had conducted an evaluation of Sequoia Union’s long-term fiscal health and found that TIDE Academy, as a small school, was costing the district more money per student compared to its larger campuses.
At Wednesday’s meeting, parents and students expressed frustration that the closure of TIDE was being considered by the board. They highlighted how the school and its staff positively impacted their learning experience in ways that larger schools never did.
“TIDE didn’t just educate me. TIDE changed my life,” said Jesus Chavez, a senior and the student body president.
TIDE Academy opened six years ago in a newly constructed $50 million campus designed for classes that focus on science, technology, engineering, art and math.
The school was funded by Measure A, a $265 million bond measure that voters passed in 2014, to meet the district’s goal of creating “a new alternative small school to meet the diverse needs of our incoming student population,” according to a 2019 district mailer.
Sequoia Union spends about $39,000 per student at TIDE compared to an average of $22,467 per student at the district’s other schools, according to state data.
TIDE currently has 195 students, with 63 freshmen, 56 sophomores, 29 juniors and 47 seniors, Leach told the board this week. Some classes have as few as four to six students, she added.
The school opened in 2019 – right before the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents argue that the Sequoia Union has struggled with low enrollment across its schools, but that TIDE was especially impacted as a newer and smaller campus.
Parents are also concerned that using the term “closure” will potentially drive away prospective families who are otherwise interested in enrolling their child at TIDE next school year. Enrollment season is currently in progress and the last day to enroll is Feb. 1, TIDE Education Foundation President Andromeda Garcelon said. The district has said it plans to make a decision on TIDE’s closure on Feb. 4.
With dozens of community members ready to speak during public comment, the board decided on Wednesday to limit each speaker to one minute rather than the three minutes regularly allowed. Many public commenters spoke past the limit, despite the microphone cutting off after the 60-second mark.
TIDE community calls school “home”
A TIDE academy parent listening to the Sequoia Union High School District Board of Trustees discuss its future plans to discuss the potential closure of the school during a board meeting on Dec. 10. Photo by Jennifer Yoshikoshi. 
TIDE Academy parents, teachers and students express looks of frustration and disappointment as they listen to Sequoia Union High School District Board of Trustees discuss its future plans to discuss the potential closure of the school during a board meeting on Dec. 10. Photo by Jennifer Yoshikoshi.
Students at TIDE approached the podium to share their positive experiences with the school, with some calling it their “second home.”
The school’s small classroom model has especially been helpful for the large community of neurodivergent students that the school has welcomed, said junior Bea Coombes. In the 2024-25 school year, state data showed that 22% of TIDE’s student body had a reported disability.
“Over time, TIDE has become a place where many neurodiverse and vulnerable students finally make progress,” said public commenter Luis Diaz. “Students with autism, ADHD, anxiety or processing challenges, they succeed here because the campus is small, predictable and staffed by adults who know them well.”
TIDE also offers career technical education and dual enrollment classes through a partnership with Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Commenters on Wednesday stressed how beneficial the school’s programs were in preparing students for college and careers.
TIDE English teacher and recruitment coordinator Daphne Pacia-McCann argued that larger schools have had the opportunity to also build these programs but haven’t opted to do so.
“You have to have teachers who are qualified to do it, who are willing to train and make connections with partner institutions and who are willing to put in the sweat equity to build the institutional knowledge necessary to build those programs,” she said.
Students also spoke about feeling a sense of belonging at TIDE, receiving support from teachers and attending a school that stressed the importance of community.
“TIDE is a small school in this district that makes students with special needs feel like they belong,” said Coombes. “Instead of shunning these students, they focus on helping them succeed.”
Teachers approached the podium to highlight TIDE’s role in promoting equity in the district, as the only Sequoia Union school that is east of Highway 101. Cat Cole, a founding teacher at TIDE, noted that about half of the school’s students live in East Palo Alto, Belle Haven or North Fair Oaks — all historically disadvantaged areas.
“The superintendent (in 2018) shared that part of the vision of TIDE is to disrupt historic patterns and draw students across the 101 freeway from west to east, instead of east to west,” said Cole. “TIDE has made this happen.”
Comments from school board members
Ginn, one of the board members on the subcommittee that recommended considering closing TIDE, observed that students leave the school over time, with class sizes progressively decreasing from freshman to senior year.
He expressed interest in seeing TIDE’s cost and student ratio data in comparison to each school in the district. Ginn added that he’d also like to look into the possibility of TIDE becoming a 10th through 12th grade school if there were not more than 100 students enrolled for ninth grade.
Thompson, the other board member on the committee with Ginn, took the opportunity to address recent concerns about her former role as the executive director of Summit Preparatory Charter High School , which is seen as a competitor to TIDE. Thompson said that she no longer works with the school and “has no financial interest” in it. Thompson currently works for Crystal Springs Uplands Middle School, an independent private school in HIllsborough.
“When this comes before the board in February, to abstain, I would need to demonstrate a conflict, and in this case, I don’t have one,” she said.
Trustee Sathvik Nori proposed a different approach to the district’s budget deficit and urged the board to explore other options rather than solely evaluating the closure of TIDE. Providing transparency for the community by looking at different solutions is important, Nori said.
“I’d be more comfortable in seeing data in context to other solutions that are being proposed, because there are other options that we’d have in front of us as to stuff we could consider and actions to address,” said Nori.
Future meetings
The district plans to hold community meetings on Jan. 13 and Jan. 15 where data points will be shared, Leach said.
On Jan. 26, the Board of Trustees is scheduled to have a public study session to review financial and enrollment data. A special board meeting is then slated for Feb. 4, at which Leach plans to share her recommendations on TIDE’s closure.
Thank you for your continued coverage of this issue. There were so many powerful personal stories and so much compelling data shared by students, teachers, and families!
Unfortunately, the set up of the meeting meant we were only allowed to make public comment *before* the Superintendent and Trustees spoke, so we had no recourse for correcting any outdated or misleading numbers that they shared.
For example, this idea that a fully enrolled class at TIDE is 100 students is based on the speculative numbers from its 1st year in 2019 when there was only a freshman class on campus. Once the school was about to be fully built out with all 4 grades, it was clear that dual enrolled students would not be going back and forth to Foothill and the capacity of the campus meant that a fully enrolled class is actually 75.
It’s also inaccurate that each of the 3 graduating classes so far has shrunk over time. My oldest child’s graduating class (2025) actually increased in size by their senior year and my child never had a single digit class in their 4 full years at TIDE.
For this reason, I appreciated Trustee Nori’s desire to broaden the conversation to include a multitude of potential solutions rather than use narrowly-defined or outdated information to hang the district’s structural deficit around TIDE’s neck. We’re ready to help find district-wide solutions that honor every student in the district!