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At 6 years old, TIDE Academy is the Sequoia Union High School District’s youngest and smallest school. The board’s unanimous decision Feb. 4 to close the Menlo Park campus in June left TIDE teachers, parents, students and even board President Amy Koo in tears.
While TIDE hasn’t been around long, it’s won the hearts of many. TIDE supporters weren’t shy about expressing their feelings to the board as they shouted comments during an emotionally charged meeting.
Since district officials first floated the idea of closing TIDE in November, its supporters have poured out their hearts in defense of the 200-student school, saying it nurtures its students, many of whom are socioeconomically disadvantaged or grappling with learning differences, and has offered a refuge from bullying that some faced at bigger, mainstream high school campuses.
The board opted to move TIDE’s programs to Woodside High School next fall.
Citing declining enrollment and a budget deficit, a district board committee had asked Superintendent Crystal Leach to explore closing TIDE to shore up the district’s finances. During the evening meeting, Leach presented three options, none of which would keep the school open past 2029.
If it does not close TIDE, high schools throughout the district will see teacher layoffs and budget cuts, Leach said. She recommended either closing TIDE at the end of this school year or the 2027-28 school year and moving the school’s programs to Woodside or closing TIDE in 2029 and allowing its current ninth, 10th and 11th graders to graduate.
“I’m thinking of the thousands of students in the different high schools around us. We’re going to have to make cuts. Something’s got to give,” said district board member Maria Cruz.
According to Leach, TIDE is estimated to cost about $8 million to operate this school year. Since the district spends over 85% of its budget on salaries and benefits, it’s difficult to reduce costs without reducing labor, she said.
The idea of moving TIDE Academy to Woodside High, which was first floated at a meeting on Jan. 26, has not been well received. Woodside is one of the district’s larger campuses, with a student population five times bigger than TIDE. The school is located 6 miles west of TIDE, which is on Jefferson Drive on the east side of Highway 101.
Hector Cornejo, a teacher at TIDE, said only 9 out of 49 of his students said they would be willing to transfer to Woodside.
“A lot of us (have) considered that we are not going to Woodside for various reasons,” said TIDE freshman Max Tsao. “Many of us are worried about the transportation, since going from Menlo Park to Woodside, during rush hour, would take us at least half an hour to 40 minutes.”
TIDE student Eliaz Kahn told the board that he transferred to TIDE from Woodside because he was bullied for having autism and faced death threats and slurs from classmates.
“Do you know what it feels like to have recruited all the ninth and 10th graders in this room, to hear their stories and to feel like I sold them a fake dream of success and security?” TIDE teacher and recruitment coordinator Daphne Pacia-McCann asked the board with tears in her eyes.
Woodside Principal Karen van Putten, who received hostile looks and disparaging comments from the crowd at the board meeting, explained that she did not volunteer to absorb TIDE’s program — the district chose Woodside.
“We are ready to welcome any student who chooses us. We are going to welcome the TIDE staff,” said Van Putten. “It’s going to take some time. It’s going to take some pivoting. It’s going to take time to adapt.”
Many students testified that TIDE gave them a second chance at achieving academic success. At recent meetings, students stood up and shared their pride in earning straight A’s for the first time, learning how to successfully write an essay with the support of TIDE teachers and finally finding their community on its campus.
Koo, who said that she has a neurodivergent child, empathized with distraught TIDE supporters. At the meeting, she said that she is also a parent who is facing the closure of her own child’s small middle school. Her oldest child attended a small school and eventually found his place in a larger high school. Although she recognized the pain that the community was experiencing, she also emphasized her responsibility to oversee the district’s budget as a board member.
“Finances are finances, and as a board, we have a fiduciary duty to make sure that our three-year projections are in alignment, and we want to make the adjustment over time and not be in a scramble at the last minute, and that is why I support the district’s recommendation to close TIDE,” Koo said.
Over the last few years, the district has been cutting costs by eliminating administrative positions and exploring reorganization, according to Leach. District reports show that with TIDE closing this school year, the district will save $14 million over four years with a phase out.
“If this is a budgetary issue, this community will help,” said one parent, who was not alone in suggesting that community fundraising efforts could save TIDE.
School board member Sathvik Nori acknowledged that the district could have explored different budgetary solutions but found it difficult to vote against Leach’s recommendations after hearing of potential teacher layoffs.
“The option the board chose will ensure that current students have the option to stay together, and will allocate future resources to serve students across the district,” said Leach in a district press release. “Now we begin the next phase: working with each and every TIDE student and staff member to ensure a smooth transition.”
The district will be establishing a transition planning team that will present an implementation package to the board later this year. Plans for what will become of TIDE’s $50 million campus once it’s vacated are still unknown.
Editor’s note: This article was corrected to accurately detail the board’s decision on moving TIDE’s programs to Woodside High.
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Personally, I don’t believe marry Beth Thompson was actually thinking about TIDE’s community when considering closure. She wanted it to be done fast so they could sweep it under the rug with minimal resistance. Not to “rip the band-aid off” so to speak. If she actually cared, if she actually listened, she would understand that the pain wasn’t living in limbo, it was the blatant disrespect from the super attendant, and a few (not all) members of the board. I mean they couldn’t even give a concrete reason as to why they brought it up in the first place. It was only after months of trying to find a reason, that they could provide one. The community only got somewhat straight answers mere weeks before they voted to close TIDE. That’s not okay. That’s not how they should run things. I hope these clearly inexperienced officials at least learn from this massive mess of a situation because it REALLY shouldn’t happen again. (even though for some people in the community it’s the second time the district has done this to them)
I’m very disappointed in the outcome of that meeting. The main reason is that for all the long range budget planning, this conversation should have been launched 3 or 4 years ago. Trustee Ginn somehow twisting this to show that because he knew the problem, that means they’ve had 4 years to solve it seems completely dismissive. This is the second time the district has chosen to disrupt a small school community and just sent them out into the giant high school wilderness to find their way. I’d better seem strong commitments from the district to shore up the very reason all those students felt unable to succeed at those giant high schools. I was disappointed in the trustee who called kids who could go to private schools “lucky”. And I thought making those kids sit through a pep talk of resources from a high school they were fighting desperately to not attend was tone deaf and kinda cruel. In seemed like that was done to placate the larger community watching that the landing would be soft. It could not have been considered helpful to the TIDE community in that moment and their failure to recognize that in advance is a sign of how little they still understand the traumas facing our youth today. Do better, everyone! Stop trying to make the kids fight for a spot in a world that doesn’t exist anymore for them. When the population picks back up, and it will, the district should consider operating TIDE as a satellite to M-A that would offer students the chance to take different kinds of classes at both campuses, but provide a smaller campus experience for what would benefit from such a thing.
Once again, mediocrity reigns supreme on the board of the Sequoia Union High School District, leaving kids in the dust and explaining it away with staid institutional excuses.
Where have you gone, Allen Weiner and Chris Thomsen? They would not stand for this. They would find a way to keep TIDE Academy open. And they would find the words and the passion to light a fire under donors big and small to keep this school and its vital promises alive and well.
This process has been insulting, opaque, dismissive, and misleading from the start. Superintendent Leach cancelled the planned community town hall and instead gave us a QR code (!?) to submit feedback. When this was called out to the board, they did nothing to hold her accountable to the process she created.
When Superintendent Leach and district staff Bonnie Hanson hammered away at the district’s supposed 27.5:1 required student:teacher ratio at the study session, they deliberately misled the board. In district planning documents and Superintendent Leach’s very own word in November, that ratio was never intended to be applied to small schools in the district and the real ratio is 22:1. The fact that they hid this from the board was called out – and again, the board did nothing to hold Superintendent Leach accountable.
The money taxpayers voted to pay to create TIDE will still need to be paid off – if you are a property owner in the district, you’ll be paying this off for a decade after our kids are evicted.
And to hold up the boogeyman of “teacher layoffs” while ignoring what will happen to the teachers and staff at TIDE is manipulative and dishonest. TIDE faculty and staff have created an environment of care and achievement and are now being treated like game pieces to be moved around at the district’s will.
And what of the kids like our TIDE student body president, who went from drugs and skipped classes in a large middle school to the Boys and Girls Club Student of the Year this year because of his TIDE experience? How many other kids is the district letting down by taking away this option for them?
Any parent put through this, any child whose pain and fear are treated like an unfortunate annoyance, would react the same way we are. Rather than deal with their poor financial planning by sharing the pain across the district, they chose to concentrate and target all the pain on our vulnerable community. The complete lack of honesty and accountability should disturb everyone in this district.
My child was part of Tide’s founding class and graduated in 2023. News of the district’s decision to close Tide absolutely breaks my heart.
The choice between Woodside and Tide was always clear for us. At a big school, my child would have been one in a crowd easily lost in the shuffle. At Tide, they were seen, valued, and supported. They found their place among good kids, dedicated teachers, and staff who truly cared about helping students grow and succeed.
Tide Academy wasn’t just a school; it was a community that gave kids a sense of belonging and purpose. It created a space where learning felt personal and where every student mattered. The friendships and confidence my child gained there have stayed with them long after graduation.
SUHSD made this decision with no regard for the community it’s hurting. Tide families, students, and staff built something special from the ground up and deserved better.
Tide Academy was a place where students were encouraged to thrive. The district had years to partner in strengthening enrollment and invest in Tide’s success but chose not to.
I agree – the meetings were a farcical performance. The decision was already made to close Tide. This is SHAMEFUL behavior from SUHSD board.