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Nesbit and Sandpiper will continue to enroll middle schoolers, after all.
The middle school program at either campus faced potential closure because of declining enrollment, but after a long and winding deliberation, the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District board Thursday night, Feb. 12, voted 4-0 to essentially keep the status quo. Board President David Koss abstained.
The board’s decision keeps the sixth-through-eighth grade classes at Nesbit and Sandpiper, while Ralston Middle School remains unaffected. But it also establishes a volunteer advisory committee tasked with promoting the middle schools and exploring additional ways to boost student numbers in those grades.
“I want us to continue the conversation with the community,” board member April Northrup said before the vote. “When we’re thinking about what will things look like in a few years, that’s where we need the community to help us.”
Board member Anne Dang told her colleagues that she preferred to “keep all of the programs open (and) preserve choice” that allows families to end up at the school they want, to the greatest extent possible.
Cost savings from shuttering a program “really won’t be realized until several years down the road,” Dang added, so “I just don’t think that warrants closing a school.”
The board’s action went against the district staff’s recommendation of dropping the middle school offering at either Nesbit in Belmont or Sandpiper in Redwood Shores, starting in the 2026-27 academic year. Either campus would still have continued as an elementary school.
“While the district’s recommendation differed from the board’s final action, trustees engaged in open and transparent dialogue throughout the process,” district Superintendent Dan Deguara said in an email to the Pulse after the meeting. “We remain committed to supporting students and families as we move forward together.”
Per the board’s direction, Deguara told the Pulse, the district plans to maintain the three middle schools under its current enrollment procedures and with capacity targets for the next three academic years.
“I believe that our board desires stability and is hopeful that the district advisory committee work will be successful,” he said. “For the upcoming 2026-27 school year, the district has already planned school information nights, parent tours and student-shadow days as a part of our community outreach. The committee will work to build on these established processes.”
The committee will include parents and report regularly to the board, he said.
In a community update Friday morning, Feb. 13, the superintendent added that the committee will “develop an awareness campaign to promote Nesbit’s International Baccalaureate (IB) and Sandpiper’s Design Thinking programs.”
He also noted that the district as its usual practice will continue to have incoming sixth-graders state their middle school preference. The district will “accommodate as space and programmatic constraints allow,” he said.
The board’s deliberation reached into the late hours Thursday and at times became tense though remaining calm and respectful as trustees struggled to find a resolution.
Initially, trustees considered, but narrowly voted down, a proposal to keep all the sites open while establishing a volunteer committee focused on school marketing and increasing enrollment.
However, they returned to that scenario later in their discussion and ultimately approved it with the three-year timeframe added.
Before that final decision, though, trustees also mulled but narrowly rejected Koss’ motion to close Sandpiper’s middle school program, one of the options presented by the district staff.
Both Nesbit and Sandpiper deliver a high-quality program, Koss said. But among the factors making a stronger case to keep Nesbit open, he said, the school serves a highly diverse student population with many English learners and is in a neighborhood of projected growth that could sustain enrollment there.
More than 30 community members addressed the board at the meeting, some giving emotional testimony about not wanting to see any school shuttered or making sure access to quality programs does not erode for underserved students.
Sandpiper parent Cindy Hsieh told the board that about 20 parent volunteers are already forming a task force to help raise enrollment, enhance learning and improve the overall experience at her school.
“Part of it will be having a liaison with Nesbit and Ralston Middle School to collaborate better in synergy,” Hsieh said. “We are eager to start leading and collaborate with the district to boost enrollment. We are confident Sandpiper can be the highly sought-after middle school of our district.”
Nesbit teacher Travis Whitebread hopes that the district does strengthen marketing efforts for his school and Sandpiper.
“Yes, there has been marketing,” Whitebread said before the board, “but I feel like we’ve seen how a lot of people are ill-informed about what is happening at these schools. … I want to make sure that families are able to understand what is being done at these different schools.”
In a report to the board, Deguara said a monthslong analysis of enrollment trends, demographic forecasts, community feedback and other data showed that continuing with three middle-school programs “is no longer operationally sustainable.”
Maintaining two under-enrolled middle schools at Sandpiper and Nesbit “creates increasing strain on program quality and long-term district sustainability,” Deguara said in the report.
According to his report, districtwide enrollment declined from 3,927 students in 2024–25 to 3,884 this school year.
“This overall decline is reflected most acutely at the middle school level,” Deguara said in the report. “A review of long-term trends shows that, year over year, more eighth-grade students are exiting the district than incoming kindergarten and transitional-kindergarten students. This pattern is projected to continue, resulting in smaller middle-school cohorts in future years.”
According to the report, the district over the next six years is projected to see its number of middle school children fall by about 290 students.
The report also noted an enrollment imbalance in which Ralston is full “with no available seats and demonstrated demand” while the two smaller schools are running at about “70% of middle-school capacity.”
Ralston has about 1,100 students, according to the district. Sandpiper enrolls 123 middle schoolers while Nesbit has 135.
The district has tried to boost middle-school enrollment by bringing in different kinds of educational offerings such as the IB program and before- and after-school language classes, Deguara said previously. But Sandpiper and Nesbit consistently have fallen short of the target enrollment.
In addition, the report said, a districtwide survey indicated that Ralston ranked as the “first-choice middle school” for nearly 90% of families.
The district has been contending with a structural deficit of about $4.8 million, Deguara told the Pulse, but that was not driving the proposed middle-school realignment.
However, he said, “a potential closure of one of the middle schools would create cost savings toward closing the deficit.”
The district plans to use reserves to bridge the deficit over time, he said.
Other area districts are similarly contending with shrinking enrollment, ongoing budget constraints and campus closure.
Because of a projected enrollment decline and other factors, the Redwood City School District earlier this month approved $6.4 million in cuts and savings, starting in 2026-27. That follows the $6.6 million in cost-savings measures that RCSD already took going into this school year.
The Sequoia Union High School District’s TIDE Academy is set to close in June after six years of operation. Sequoia Union cited falling enrollment and a budget deficit for the decision to shut down the small high school in Menlo Park.
