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TIDE Academy: This story has more wrinkles than a used handkerchief.
The Saga continues
Sequoia Union High School District (SUHSD) has made many mistakes over the years in opening new campuses and closing down established ones. They moved students around campuses through mandatory busing and also on a voluntary basis.
In their defense, they also had to cope with the ‘destructive forces’ of some of their feeder elementary districts or, as they frame it, “16% enrollment decline across feeder districts“. Yes, we are looking at Redwood City School District (RCSD) and all its ‘school choice‘ madness
Over the years, SUHSD has been punished for this ‘school choice’ with enrollment issues. Then again, as a longtime basic aid district (since around 2002), they haven’t really cared too much about enrollment anymore. Which adds another baffling layer to the TIDE Academy Saga. More about this later.
What happened so far
We assembled the greatest detectives and investigators in book and TV history to help solve this puzzle of why TIDE Academy was created and then killed off after a rather short 6 years. The official reason is a budget shortfall of $6M versus the promise of $8M in savings.
The group TIDE Rising was touting TIDE’s educational advantages as a small school. And that size matters even more so when you consider the fact that their pupils are more likely to be in the categories of SPED (Special Education) and SED (Socioeconomically Disadvantaged).
Our True Detectives looked into this and found that SUHSD would have plenty of budget if they wanted to keep TIDE. But they also found that TIDE wasn’t the only small school in the system. Last year there were around six or seven different choices for a small high school in San Mateo County. And because of its small size, the number of special education students wasn’t really that large.
Then our detectives investigated whether separation is even a great tool in educating SPED students. The experts say no. Especially for most neurodivergent students – who are supposed to function in real-world scenarios later in life – those early social exposures are essential.
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]
But there is no time to waste. Our detectives are testing a few more theories.
Third Reason to Keep TIDE: “Diversity”
“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.” [Source: Almanac]
According to TIDE Rising and the civil rights lawsuits, TIDE was especially great for low-income children, who were bused over from East Palo Alto. TIDE Rising was trying to make a case for Equity.
“Equity” is always a favorite topic in San Mateo County. Privileged politicians have used “equity” to sell the public on “Lexus Lanes”. They used “equity” when removing bike lanes from a designated Equity Focus Area. And the million-dollar boondoggle coming Redwood City’s way with the Ferry Service for Google and META employees will be, of course, all about “equity”. RCSD constantly used “equity” to justify segregating magnet schools for our “coastal elites“.
“Really, I have no gifts—no gifts at all—except perhaps a certain knowledge of human nature.” [Miss Marple]
Let’s look at whether TIDE’s argument is standing on more solid footing. Is TIDE especially “diverse”?
“Diversity” is often used as another word for socioeconomically disadvantaged children (SED). So is Unduplicated Pupil Count (UPC) or Unduplicated Pupil Percentage (UPP) or just “low-income”. ADA isn’t the same as enrollment either, but it gets us into the same ballpark.
| # | School | ADA | SED % | SED Students |
| 1 | Kipp Esperanza HS | 194 | 96.4 | 187 |
| 2 | Everest Public HS | 224 | 87.1 | 195 |
| 3 | Redwood HS | 175 | 80 | 140 |
| 4 | East Palo Alto Academy | 278 | 79.5 | 221 |
| 5 | Summit Preparatory Charter | 293 | 74.7 | 219 |
| 6 | Sequoia HS | 1,854 | 49.7 | 921 |
| 7 | Tide Academy | 212 | 47.2 | 100 |
| 8 | Menlo-Atherton HS | 2,158 | 40 | 863 |
| 9 | Woodside HS | 1,660 | 36.8 | 611 |
| 10 | Carlmont HS | 2,360 | 10.7 | 253 |
| 11 | Design Tech | 567 | 7.8 | 44 |
Several of our detectives and private investigators looked at the numbers and started wondering:
- It looks like larger Sequoia HS has a higher percentage of SED kids than TIDE Academy.
- Menlo-Atherton and Woodside HS aren’t that far behind.
- All charter schools in Redwood City and East Palo Alto are far more “diverse”.
- In sheer numbers, even Carlmont HS features more SED children than TIDE.
Here are a few more things our detectives, investigators, and number crunchers have been wondering about:
When RCSD closed 4 low-income neighborhood schools – a clear civil rights violation – no one called the civil rights lawyer. Could it just be that real victims of civil rights issues usually can’t afford a SF law group? And why did the “white liberals” not help out in that case? Maybe it’s because those low-income schools got closed, so the privileged could keep their magnet schools (“Language Immersion”, “Parent Participation”, “Enrichments”, “Electives”, “GATE”, etc.)?
“Leigh Law Group is a San Francisco-based firm specializing in special education law, disability rights, employment law, and civil rights litigation.“
… Just One More Thing … how “diverse” is the revolution?
The detectives are making some good points, which deserve going deeper.
As mentioned, in 2018, Redwood City SD board members closed four low-income neighborhood schools, but kept 5 very expensive Magnet Schools. No time was given for grief; only false reasons were given; no board member cared even a little about equity for these SED kids. But also … no civil rights suit, no petition, no threats of recall – how?
The “TIDE Rising” at that time was called “Redwood City Education Foundation” (and financed by Stanford). And RCEF made sure that the privileged got to keep their very expensive Magnet Schools. Even without RCEF, all five board members had family and friends benefiting from this scheme. They had skin in the game themselves.
Here, the privileged are the jilted ones, and they are getting loud.
“The privileged are finally rising.” [Zarathustra]
From this, our detectives concluded that board members with no skin in the game are more equipped to make the right decisions.
Fourth Reason to keep TIDE: “Community”
Another reason to keep TIDE alive was that this was a very close community. SUHSD offered to keep the community alive by transforming TIDE Magnet School into TIDE Magnet Program at Woodside HS.
SUHSD already offers similar magnet programs at Carlmont HS and Sequoia HS. They offer programs in Media Arts, biotech, and the IB program. TIDE STEAM would have become a magnet program at Woodside HS.
The students writing for M&A Chronicle predicted this in June about the community: “Of the 187 TIDE students—current students and rising ninth graders who enrolled in TIDE before the closure was announced alike—84 students indicated they would be attending M-A next year, 46 of the students plan to attend Woodside, 41 Sequoia High School, 12 East Palo Alto Academy, and four Carlmont High School.”
In the end, it sounded like neither SUHSD nor the community was too interested in keeping this together. After the last senior class graduated, there were some 122 students left to take the Woodside HS offer. Of those, only 26 chose Woodside HS. You can’t run a magnet program on that.
… Just One More Thing … “Choice” always destroys Community
This reason for “a great community” was easily refuted by the parents themselves. When “choice” came into play, the community dispersed quickly. In the end, “community” didn’t seem to be a major factor in choosing the new school.
In districts with “choice school” experiments, the rule has always been: “it’s every family for themselves”. In these districts, it’s always about finding the shortcut instead of working with the (neighborhood) community to make your own school better.
The Cliffhanger
“The cause of death is not yet known.” [Dr. Quincy]
We are not done with this topic. Our detectives still feel in the dark. Neither size, equity, diversity, nor community really seemed to explain why the TIDE experiment should have continued. The fact that TIDE advertises as a STEM school (typically advertised as high-pressure, high-achiever environments), but had an above-average number of neurodiverse children, should be concerning to the Board.
Did high pressure lead to these many cases of neurodiversity, or is neurodiversity attracted to STEM? The detectives think they need more information and more reliable data.
And we have yet to look at SUHSD’s framing of this story.
… to be continued.
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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