Dear Members of the School Board,
I was very disappointed to hear of discussions emerging around a possible closure of TIDE Academy and I wanted to express to you how important I believe the school is to the community, through the lens of my two children. One is a TIDE alum and the other is a current Junior.
When our daughter graduated out of Hillview Middle School, the emergence of TIDE Academy as an alternative to Menlo Atherton High School (MA) came as a blessing. While MA is an outstanding high school, it was never going to be a fit for our daughter given the size of the school. Indeed many parents considering TIDE at the time, expressed similar feelings, that a smaller school would better fit their kids personality. Indeed, our daughter did thrive at TIDE and we strongly believe the smaller setting allowed her to develop into a competent, confident young lady, now in her second year at college. TIDE allowed her the space to find herself and grow. As parents we highly doubt she would developed in the same way at MA.
When our son graduated out of Hillview Middle School, he decided TIDE was where he wanted to go. He is a Junior at TIDE and we see that he is developing extremely well, [REDACTED]. The amazing teachers at TIDE able to work with him on study plans so that he continued to stay on track for high school graduation and college readiness [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. We highly doubt MA would have been able to make such accommodations due to the scale of their student body.
These are just two examples of how invaluable TIDE has been and I have no doubt there are numerous similar stories from other parents. I urge you to to consider as most important a student centric approach in allocating resources in the district ....the idea that the school district should continue to offer different schools types and sizes to accommodate all kinds of kids in our district so that they can ALL achieve academic and developmental success. After all, this is what education is about.
Your sincerely,
[REDACTED] (cell)