Blog: Continuing the TIDE Academy Saga

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TIDE Academy: Come for STEM – stay for Neuro-diverse-equity?

Murder She Wrote

It takes a village …
A school environment is part of a village.
A school is part of a community.
A school is a community in itself.
A school is a living thing.
And when a cherished, living thing is threatened and quickly closed, people ask questions. People need to be allowed to express grief. It’s all about finding closure.

“Human nature is much the same everywhere, and, of course, one has opportunities of observing it at closer quarters in a village.” [Miss Marple]

For our steamy, magnetic thriller about ‘Who Killed TIDE Academy?“, we concluded that figuring this out might require professional help from some of the greatest detectives in literature.
We have our picks from writers as famous as Agatha Christie, Edgar Allen Poe, Raymond Chandler, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We reached out to different TV investigators, like retired high school English teacher Jessica Fletcher or Lt. Columbo. We even have brilliant and possibly neurodivergent detectives Sherlock Holmes, Adrian Monk, and George Cross on speed dial. But first …

… The Money

Let me assure you, for the last 20-30 years, SUHSD has been very well funded. If you look at the graph, you can see that SUHSD only spends some 34.4% of funding on classroom education (orange line). They should be spending 50% (green target zone). Spending 50% on education would still leave another 50% for “discretionary spending” such as district administrators, support staff, buildings, all-around maintenance, … and yes, also magnet schools like TIDE Academy.
And no law currently prevents any district from spending even more if education, equity, or special education were high on their minds. But SUHSD has been going the opposite way; it doesn’t spend the full 50%; it somehow managed to add another 15% and give itself 65% of “discretionary spending”.
Now, there is currently a law to prevent this (EDC41372). This is in total violation of that law, but obviously tolerated by San Mateo County’s Board of Education (SMCOE).

This means money might not have been the real issue for terminating TIDE Academy, as SUHSD has plenty of “discretionary spending”. But 8 million dollars isn’t chump change either. And $8M in cost savings might look like an easy fix if you face a $6M or $6.5M budget shortfall.

“Follow the money.” [Deep Throat, All the President’s Men]

Was SUHSD always this rich?

That chart goes only back to 2003. But SUHSD was just as rich before 2003.

The Public: How could the detectives be so sure?
The Detectives: Because SUHSD exists.

The cheapest form of education is a network of small K-12 campuses, spread out across the region, the state, the country. In California, ca. 4.5% of all public schools are set up like this. That is how many poorer, more rural public schools operate, because of locality and transportation. But this is also how many urban private and charter schools operate, because of costs and funding.

The K-12 campus is preferable in terms of costs, transportation, sustainability, community, and anxiety. There is no structure for bullying; which senior would bully the incoming first graders, K, or Pre-K kids? On the contrary, they would be asked to mentor them.

In many Unified Districts, combining a set of K-8s and fewer high schools is more common (ca. 19%). It is costlier and requires very large high schools.

The richer a school district or area, the more K-5s, 6-8s, and 9-12s you would see – all these types of schools are direct descendants of the history behind school segregation. The richest districts have multiple Middle and Magnet Schools.

The richest areas like to split this even into several school districts. That made school segregation even easier. Pure High School Districts would never exist in a world that is really “underfunding” their schools.

… Just One More Thing … what is SUHSD really all about?

So far, our investigators have found out that SUHSD has tons of money, but the financial setup suggests that the leadership really doesn’t care too much about education, equity, or special education. They do love real estate, structures, and athletic facilities.
Is TIDE different? Was TIDE a structure play or an experiment to fix education, equity, segregation, and neurodiversity? And if so, did the experiment succeed?

Which leads us right to …

1st Reason to Keep TIDE: “School Size Matters”

One reason TIDE Academy should have been kept is that it is the only small school in the system, and small schools are better for kids with certain disabilities (SPED) or certain financial backgrounds (SED).

Several of our detectives and private investigators went to work. They looked at the numbers and started wondering:

• San Carlos HS and Ravenswood HS were closed because they were deemed too small and too expensive.
• From 2014 to 2018, there were at least five small public schools within the SUHSD area. Why not build them up and build them out instead?
• The area already has D.Tech, a STEM-based charter, founded in 2014.
• No one during 2014-2019 ever questioned SUHSD’s planning for another shiny, new STEM Magnet … supporting only a planned 400 students?
• Why the high staff turnover?

… Just One More Thing … the never-achieved-400-students plan

Why did they never achieve the 400 students? Was there a lack of advertising? Did they hope to bring more kids over from charter schools? Did the parents oppose this? Did the school administration oppose this? Did the district oppose this?

There were plenty of small schools. There was another STEM school already. And it’s not like Carlmont, Menlo-Atherton, Sequoia, or Woodside HS stopped teaching Math, Science, or the Arts. The financials never made any sense. The enrollment growth expectations looked shaky. Basic aid districts never aim for growth anyway. The only conclusion our detectives, private investigators, and financial pathologists can draw from this is that SUHSD had money to burn and money to hide. And maybe there was just another reason …

2nd Reason to Keep TIDE: “Special Education”

“TIDE Rising, a coalition of TIDE parents, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Feb. 13, 2026, alleging TIDE’s closure violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. In one court filing, parents compared TIDE to “a wheelchair ramp for students with neurological conditions” and accused the District of preparing to demolish that ramp. [Source: MA Chronicle]

#	School	ADA	SPED %	SPED Students
1	Menlo-Atherton HS	2,158	13.3	287
2	Woodside HS	1,660	16.6	276
3	Sequoia HS	1,854	14.7	273
4	Carlmont HS	2,360	9.7	229
5	Design Tech Charter	567	13.6	77
6	Summit Preparatory Charter	293	20.8	61
7	East Palo Alto Academy	278	20.8	58
8	TIDE Academy	212	22.2	47
9	Kipp Esperanza Charter	194	21.1	41
10	Everest Public Charter	224	16.5	37
11	Redwood HS	175	18.3	32

Lt. Colombo is the first to ask: can we even trust the SPED category? Parents and school districts have certain incentives to fudge numbers in this category. There might be more access to certain funds, grants, and personnel. Kids might get more time for tests or not have to participate at all. Better standard test results might benefit the school in rankings.

For now, however, Colombo must trust the system works. So the data we have is the only data we can use.

Several of our detectives and private investigators looked at the numbers and started wondering:

• Yes, TIDE seems to have the highest percentage, but the real student count dwarfs Menlo-Atherton, Sequoia, and Woodside HS.
• In sheer numbers, TIDE Academy ranks behind 7 other local public schools with more SPED children.
• The LCFF formula grants extra funding for every SPED child.
• SUHSD’s per-student funding just breached $45,000 per pupil.
• What exactly is this “wheelchair ramp” doing that helps these 47 SPED students so much better at TIDE?
• $8,000,000 per year to serve 47 SPED students is a very expensive “wheelchair ramp”.
• TIDE was planned as a STEM magnet; when and why did it turn into a SPED school focusing on neurodiverse conditions?
• In the end, is the return on investment (ROI) really so much better at TIDE?
• And if it is, can the district learn from anything and replicate it at the larger schools, or is ‘school segregation’ the only philosophy that works for these children with various mental health conditions?

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Quick Interlude

Are segregated schools really the best answer to the changing needs of students with autism?

Neurodiversity means that every child’s brain is wired differently, so variations in thinking, learning, and behaving—like autism, ADHD, or dyslexia—are just natural differences rather than medical defects. Just as we naturally accept differences in physical traits like height or eye color, schools use this idea to support each student’s unique strengths instead of trying to “fix” how their minds work.
A separation from other children is only required if there is a high risk of self-harm or hurting others. [childmind.org]

… Just One More Thing … special education vs. “special” education

Parents of children requiring special education (SPED) have advocated for decades that their kids are treated equally and equitably in regular schools and integrated classrooms.

Parents who require segregated schools or segregated classrooms are looking for “special” education for kids who are already doing very well within the standard.

Ari Ne’eman, the leader of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, doesn’t think neurodiverse children require segregation: “If we have an environment in which autistic people are over there, in that other classroom, in that other environment, it really sends a very clear message that we are not a part of your society.” [Researchautism.org]

The larger numbers of SPED students at the other high schools seem to support the researchers. Plenty of SPED students are clearly managing these larger environments.

Well-run school districts – run by professionals and educators – can do wonders with $20,000-$30,000 in funding for each SPED child. Private schools promising “special education” might ask for $70,000-$100,000 per child. But calling in a civil rights law firm to demand that the district spend $8M on a SPED school – that wasn’t built or advertised for SPED children – has not been well explained so far. Especially when neurodiversity research just doesn’t support the claims of these parents.

The Cliffhanger

“The cause of death is not yet known.” [Dr. Quincy]

We are not clearly done with this topic. The detectives still have to look at my favorite topics like Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Community.

What they found out so far is that TIDE Academy was not closed because it lacked passionate families, sympathetic students, or a compelling story. It was closed because the district concluded that a campus designed for about 400 students could no longer be justified at roughly half that scale, especially while the district forecasts a multimillion-dollar deficit.

The calculations of a $6M shortfall vs. $8M in cost savings might look like a knee-jerk reaction. But this Magnet School was probably created for political and not for good governance reasons. The way it was set up, it could not wipe out the damage done in 1976, when SUHSD closed down the much larger Ravenswood HS.

Remember what the detectives said earlier. The structure of the district setup tells us that SUHSD must have been rich back in 1976 already.

To Be Continued …

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Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.

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