|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Sequoia Union High School District’s decision to close TIDE Academy, a small, STEM-based school in Menlo Park, in early February hasn’t stopped parents from trying to save their children’s school.
A group of parents who call themselves TIDE Rising filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Sequoia district, asking a federal judge for a temporary restraining order to stop the district from closing TIDE this summer. They are being represented by San Francisco-based firm Leigh Law Group.
The six-year-old high school, open to every student in the district, enrolls a disproportionately high share of socioeconomically disadvantaged students as well as those with learning disabilities, Sequoia district data shows. During late night meetings, demonstrations and in hundreds of emails, teachers and parents called on board members to save the school, saying TIDE has offered the educational support and strong community that allows its students to thrive.
The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 13 with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleges that the school district discriminated against students with disabilities and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Rehabilitation Act — laws that prohibit public agencies from discriminating against individuals with disabilities and offers equal opportunity to all of its programs and activities.
Parents also allege in court filings that the district’s deliberations about the closure were a sham, and the decision was predetermined, citing documents obtained through a Public Records Act request.
“TIDE Academy is not merely a school preference; it is the functional equivalent of an accessibility ramp for students with autism, anxiety disorders, ADHD, and other disabilities that make large, comprehensive high school campuses inaccessible,” according to a memorandum filed in support of the temporary restraining order. “The District now proposes to demolish that ramp and scatter these vulnerable students across 2,000-plus student campuses where they cannot function — all under the pretext of financial necessity that the District’s own data does not support.”
The district filed an opposition to the parents’ motion on Feb. 24, alleging that keeping TIDE open will disrupt districtwide scheduling and resource planning that will affect hundreds of students and families and require millions of dollars in staffing and operational costs.
Sequoia Union is facing a projected deficit of over $6 million by the end of this school year, Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services Janea Marking said in January. District staff said it spends thousands more per student at TIDE compared to its other campuses: an average of $39,169 per student at TIDE compared to $20,758 per Menlo-Atherton High School student, according to district data.
The Sequoia district board first floated the idea of closing TIDE in November. After months of community meetings and public outcry, the board unanimously voted on Feb. 4 to shut down TIDE at the end of this school year and move its programs to Woodside High School, displacing its roughly 200 students. No details have been shared about the future of TIDE’s campus, which cost $50 million and opened in 2019.
District officials explained that closing TIDE was necessary to prevent further budget deficits and potential teacher lay offs, considering the school’s declining enrollment.
Supporters said that TIDE’s small classrooms helped many students, especially those with disabilities, achieve academic success and social belonging, something they had struggled with at larger schools such as Woodside and Menlo-Atherton High School.
The suit includes nine declarations from parents and TIDE staff in support of TIDE Rising’s motion to prevent the district from closing the school. Multiple parents describe how their child’s disabilities would make it difficult or “impossible” for them to attend a larger school, some citing their child’s past experiences with bullying, academic struggles and lack of accommodations.
“At TIDE, ‘the small teacher-to-student ratio has changed everything,’” said a TIDE parent identified as J.L. in the lawsuit. “She concludes: ‘While her IEP exists on paper, TIDE is the only place where it is implemented as intended.’”
A parent identified as D.W. wrote that her child was “overlooked, overwhelmed and shutting down emotionally,” while managing anxiety and learning accommodations when at Sequoia High School, a campus with over 1,900 students.
The lawsuit adds that TIDE’s lead counselor Lara Sandora confirmed that many students enrolled there after struggling in larger school environments. She added that TIDE’s structural accommodations cannot be replicated at the district’s other schools.
The parents allege that the district violated the students’ disability rights by removing access to TIDE, which gives neurodivergent students fair opportunities to access federally funded programs, required under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
In the district’s opposition, it argues that these laws only require “reasonable modifications when necessary,” but do not give parents the right to freeze the school’s closure or require the district to maintain a specific campus.
“Granting the requested (temporary restraining order) would force the district to undo months of planning, freeze staffing and budgeting decisions, and operate a school it has determined is fiscally unsustainable,” it said.
Superintendent Crystal Leach’s declaration asserts that TIDE was not designed or approved as a neurodivergent or disability-specific program and that all the services that students require can be provided on other district campuses.
When the school board member Mary Beth Thompson announced in November that the district would be exploring TIDE’s closure, parents were quick to request documents from the district but a number of the requests were still pending when the board voted to close TIDE in early February. TIDE parent Jason Primuth said they sought records to get answers and look for “shady” behavior.
The lawsuit claims that the district engaged a third party communications consultant who drafted talking points and emails, and created a pre-set milestone timeline prior to the November announcement. It alleges that district documents show Thompson used the consultant to draft email responses to parents and was instructed by Leach to BCC her and other board members.
“Every step of the purported community engagement process … was pre-calendared as a deliverable in a public relations work plan before a single parent had been heard,” the lawsuit states.
“They literally paid for a communications consultant out of Sacramento to draft all their messaging, rather than hiring somebody to brainstorm, or just sit with parents and say, ‘Hey, what would be a good solution here?’” Primuth told this news organization. “They’ve spent my money, as a taxpayer, on some company to make the communications look palatable.”
TIDE Rising’s lawsuit is being funded by parents and donors through the TIDE Education Foundation, he said.
‘Botched’ process after board’s vote
Parents also complained about the district’s follow-up after the decision to close TIDE. A week after the board’s final vote in early February, parents only received communication from TIDE’s principal, according to TIDE Education Foundation President Andromeda Garcelon. There was no email sent to families from the district, she said.
On Feb. 10, TIDE parents received their first communication since the vote — a “botched” email with an intra-district transfer request form that did not include the option to enroll in TIDE’s relocated programs at Woodside High, said Garcelon. The transfer form gives TIDE students and incoming eighth graders the opportunity to choose a campus to attend during Sequoia Union’s open enrollment process.
Students have until March 9 to submit their forms.
At a board meeting on Feb. 12, parents complained that the district’s email looked like spam and didn’t mention the district in the subject line. Rather than being sent to a student’s primary guardian, it went to the secondary contact.
“If people ignore this email, their child defaults to their home school, effectively depressing the number of students who might actually want to go to TIDE at Woodside. This email assumes everyone is keeping up with every detail of (the recent) board decision,” said parent Marijane Leonard.
Leach and the board were made aware of the mistake after parents made public comments and acknowledged that the email sent was missing information about the board’s recent decision.
Primuth said the closure of TIDE has dramatically impacted his child and their classmates. He said that neurodivergent students are worried about their chances of graduating from a larger high school — at TIDE, students with learning accommodations boast a 100% graduation rate while the district average is 80%.
A hearing has been scheduled for March 3 at 2 p.m. in Courtroom 9 at 450 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco.
Great, another law suit!
I hope they’re successful in keeping TIDE open.
Thank you for covering this important issue. Please note that TIDE enrollment had actually been increasing. Enrollment at the other high schools in the district is declining.
Yet another example of performative — or in some cases nonexistent — community engagement from SUHSD. With AS/Honors removal and the Ethnic Studies curriculum, parents were cut out entirely. With the Strategic Plan and now TIDE, they at least went through the motions, hiring consultants to smooth the output and make the messaging “palatable.” Different tactics, same result: decisions made before anyone was asked.
These are our public schools. The whole point of an elected board is to represent the community, provide direction to the superintendent, who then manages staff accordingly. SUHSD has it exactly backwards: staff drives the agenda, the superintendent runs interference, and the board goes along for the ride. The tail is wagging the dog.
The result is a district that treats parents as a constituency to be managed with carefully crafted PR rather than partners to be heard — despite the fact that this community is deeply engaged and knowledgeable. Excluding them doesn’t make governance easier. It makes outcomes worse, academically and financially.
The numbers tell the story: local property tax revenues growing at 6%/year, declining enrollment — and somehow a structural deficit? It happens when leadership substitutes union appeasement and PR strategy for genuine accountability.
These lawsuits, and the costs that come with them, were entirely avoidable. The superintendent sets the tone for all of this. It’s past time to ask whether that tone is serving our students — or just the adults in the system.
The school board carelessly wastes tax payers money on outlandish expensive “consultants”. That money could go directly to student services but the board refuses to do the best and right thing for the students.
It appears that in this case, a “rising tide” would sink all ships. At least the Leigh Law Group is getting paid. They know what’s up. $$$