|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
One of three candidates running for the Sequoia Union High School District Board of Trustees stands out: Jacob Yuryev is at least two decades younger than his opponents.
The recent Carlmont High School graduate served one year on the board as a student trustee before throwing his hat in the ring for the district’s Area B, which represents parts of Belmont, San Carlos and Redwood City.
Trustee Carrie Du Bois has represented Area B since the district switched to area-based elections and has served on the Sequoia board for 13 years. She told this news organization in August that she decided not to run for reelection because “it’s time to pass the baton to the next generation of parents in the district.”
Yuryev graduated from Carlmont last year and was accepted into Stanford University. Yuryev would not be the only trustee who ran just after graduating. Trustee Sathvic Nori was elected to represent Area D in 2022, a year after graduating from Menlo-Atherton High School. He is also attending Stanford.
“We have already seen how a student in my position is able to succeed and allocate the time necessary to be on the board,” Yuryev said. “My constituents and the community will always be a priority for me. I have, for a variety of reasons, decided to take a gap year in part to ensure that if elected I have the time to focus on the community and my potential position.”
Yuryev deferred admission to the fall of 2025.
Trustee Rich Ginn, who represents Area C, has endorsed Yuryev.
“Jacob has demonstrated his commitment to our school district and he has also spoken up to express opinions on behalf of the community, even when expressing those opinions was very difficult to do,” Ginn said. “If elected, Jacob will be a strong addition to our board.”
One of Yuryev’s main focus as a student trustee was the district’s detracking policy. The district has cut many freshmen and some sophomore honors classes. The district has said that grouping students together increased socioeconomically disadvantaged, SED, students’ graduation and A-G completion rates and did not hurt non-SED students.
Yuryev and Ginn both oppose the policy.
Du Bois has been more reserved about her opinions, requesting more time to make a decision at a meeting about detracking. Du Bois, outgoing Trustee Shawneece Stevenson and trustee Amy Koo endorsed Yuryev’s opponent, Mary Beth Thompson, who this news organization profiled previously.
Nori is the only current trustee who has yet to endorse an Area B candidate.
This news organization previously profiled Daniel Torunian, who is also running for Area B.
All three Area B candidates have confirmed they will attend a candidate forum hosted by The Almanac on Oct. 3.
Detracking
During Yuryev’s time on the Sequoia board, the district produced a report on the detracking policy, which Yuryev reviewed. In his review, posted by SUHSD Students First, he said that the benefits the report identified are caused by grade inflation, the report did not look at the effect on more academically inclined students and reiterated that honors classes do not diminish the opportunities available to SED students.
He also said the report had “absolutely blatant cherry-picking of data and clear(ly) incorrect conclusions.”
“I support academic opportunity and choice for our students. I think that it’s important to recognize that we have a big problem in the district in terms of the achievement gap but it’s also important to recognize that detracking is not a solution for that problem,” Yuryev said. “The data that the district released shows the same disparity in registration for honors classes as before.”
The district’s data shows that after the freshmen English classes, the freshmen biology classes and the sophomore chemistry classes merged at Menlo-Atherton, pass rates in all three for SED students increased and stayed high for non-SED students.
For English, at the time of the report, the students affected by the change had yet to finish their sophomore English classes but there was not an increase of SED students in honors sophomore English.
After the merge of chemistry classes, non-SED student enrollment in AP Chemistry significantly increased while SED student enrollment stayed the same. Scores on the AP Chemistry exam also increased.
Biology classes districtwide were merged as part of the district’s efforts to remove classes that did not meet the University of California admissions requirements. Similar to the chemistry change, non-SED student enrollment in AP Biology increased and SED student enrollment was largely unaffected. Scores on the AP Biology exam increased.
“I think that while we have a really big problem that we really need to fix, we need to fix that problem by investing in … streamlining of the transition between our feeder middle schools and our high schools, investing in academic counselors and academic support to ensure that all students sign up for these advanced classes and all students succeed in these advanced classes at the same rate as each other,” Yuryev said.
“I support fixing the problem, but I believe that removing classes decreases the choice and opportunity that students have and is a bad idea,” he added.
Ethnic Studies presentation
The Sequoia district received national attention over a presentation in an M-A Ethnic Studies class that some saw as one-sided and antisemetic.
“It really worries me when what we are teaching in class is not factual,” Yuryev said. He said he thinks that a teacher’s job is to provide facts for students and to moderate the discussion of students on those facts and present third-party perspectives on those facts.
“I think sadly, that did not happen in this specific case, and that is a tragedy.”
The ‘Killing America’ documentary
Yuryev was a central part of filmmaker Eli Steele’s documentary that focuses on Menlo-Atherton, “Killing America.”
After the first screening of the documentary, Menlo-Atherton Principal Karl Losekoot emailed staff members: “Most are aware that this weekend there was a showing of a documentary titled, Killing America, at the Menlo-Park Guild Theater. The previews of this documentary are disturbing as the short film takes images from recent board meetings and conflates them with images of violence that have nothing to do with M-A or our staff. … The film presents an example of sensational propaganda at its worst, and it aims to paint M-A in a negative light. The one saving grace is that the film appears as completely ridiculous. Interestingly, I have only heard from families who wish to distance themselves from this documentary and who are clear in their support of M-A.”
Yuryev took part in panels at screenings of the documentary but distanced himself from the documentary’s message.
“I want to say that my participation within the documentary is limited to the extent of the words that I said in the documentary,” he told this news organization. “I neither support nor oppose nor endorse any of the other messages. Just the specific words that I said within the documentary is the limits of my participation within the creation of the documentary, but I was really hoping …to work to bring awareness to our community, and to start the healing process of our district.”
In a post on Steele’s Substack titled “Jacob the Brave,” Steele writes that Yuryev told the audience of a Palo Alto screening that, in order to get his student trustee position, “I knew what answers they wanted and I spoon-fed it to them.”
Yuryev claims that quote was taken out of context, “I really respect all of the administration, teachers, faculty and board members within our district. …I think that it was a bad example, and in the moment, I was simply talking about how sometimes, especially within the classroom and within the academic environment, you’re forced to take positions that you think your teachers want to hear and I think that’s a problem.”
Editor’s note: Arden Margulis was involved in a copyright dispute with Steele at his previous publication, the M-A Chronicle.
‘Not only was I a student in our district for four years, not only do I have a little sister that just began her first year at Carlmont, I also spent a year deeply involved within the administration and board of our district.’
Jacob Yuryev
Yuryev said he stands out as a candidate because of his experience at Sequoia.
“Not only was I a student in our district for four years, not only do I have a little sister that just began her first year at Carlmont, I also spent a year deeply involved within the administration and board of our district,” he said. “I think that neither of my opponents, while they have a wealth of diverse experience, have experience specifically within my district.”
Hear Yuryev and other candidates for Sequoia trustee Areas B and E lay out their positions at the Sequoia Union High School District Board of Trustees candidate forum, hosted by The Almanac and the M-A PTA on Oct. 3
Joan Lane, trailblazing volunteer and Stanford’s go-to for ‘sticky problems,' dies at 97March 25, 2026 3:23 pm