Sequoia Union High School District officials, students, teachers and parents spent more than six hours Wednesday discussing a multiyear effort to streamline courses with the goal to improve student outcomes through more diverse classrooms but appeared to remain as split at the end of the meeting as when the discussion first started.
Over the past decade, the district and its sites have made changes to course offerings including discontinuing advanced integrated science for incoming ninth graders to instead enroll all freshmen into Biology-P, condensing ninth grade English Language Arts classes at Woodside, Carlmont and Menlo Park high schools and making similar changes to other math and science offerings.
A study of the course changes, which looked at grades, test scores, graduation credits and college and career prerequisites, found that while there appeared to be little to no effect on high-achieving populations, groups that have struggled in the past saw improvements including fewer course repeats and higher rates of students meeting college entrance requirements.
“What I would say to parents is your students are thriving,” Karl Losekoot, principal at Menlo-Atherton High School, said. “Students in this school, in this district, are thriving. We cannot allow a belief that students are falling behind to drive our decisions when that is simply not the case. I don’t know how you can debate that.”
Many educators also spoke in favor of detracking some offerings, particularly for freshmen, but not everyone was sold on the assertion that the changes caused little to no harm to other students. Some parents and students, including Student Trustee Jacob Yuryev, noted that the study by Dr. Diana Wilmot, director of Program Evaluation and Research, did not include input from students about how they felt about the classes including whether they felt adequately challenged.
Hundreds of parents and students have signed a petition asking that the district rethink its detracking process and some parents have suggested they’d move their children to private schools if more honors classes were discontinued, board Chair Richard Ginn said.
“I want all families to believe our schools are the best school for them,” Ginn said. “We must address this. We can’t hear 500 people sign a letter that they’re concerned about the offerings, have dozens of people say they’re looking at private school and, in my opinion, just do nothing.”Trustee Shawneece Stevenson said she would support some ideas put forward by public speakers including conducting more studies into the issue and finding ways to support teachers more in the classroom. Trustee Sathvic Nori said he supported staff’s mission but his main concern about low rates of underserved students entering advanced placement courses appears to still be unaddressed by the changes, according to the data.
No decision was made during the meeting given that the item was only put forward for discussion.
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