Editor’s Note: This story was first printed in the Daily Post on June 27. We’re posting it now because one of our competitors has posted a version of the story, and we think readers should see the original. To get all the local news first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Three board members for the Sequoia Union High School District have responded to a renewed attempt to recall them for closing a tech-focused school for 200 students in Menlo Park.
Board member Maria Cruz said parents are targeting her because she’s Latina, and board member Rich Ginn said he wants to keep the focus on students.
“Hard public decisions are not a failure of oversight. They are part of responsible governance,” board member Mary Beth Thompson said in her response to the recall. Parents are upset about board members voting 5-0 on Feb. 4 to close TIDE Academy at 150 Jefferson Drive due to budget cuts.
Parents said board members and Superintendent Crystal Leach weren’t transparent about the decision and ignored proposals to make the school more cost effective.
“They declined to do the work to communicate honestly with us and figure things out, and this is not how any district constituent should be treated – on any issue. That’s what is driving the recall,” parent Rebecca O’Brien said in a statement yesterday.
Previous attempt
Parents served Cruz, Ginn and Thompson with recall notices after getting 30 signatures from voters in their area. Previous recall attempts were halted after the elections office said paperwork was incomplete or signatures were invalid.
Parents have 120 days to gather signatures from 20% of the registered voters in each board member’s area – 6,678 for Cruz, 7,557 for Ginn and 4,271 for Thompson, according to Chief Elections Officer Mark Church.
Parents aren’t trying to recall board members Sathvik Nori and Amy Koo because their terms end this year.
In self defense
Cruz, Ginn and Thompson were allowed to submit responses to the recall notice that must be included with the recall petition.
Ginn kept it short: “14 years of school board service. Reelected unopposed in 2024. Woodside, Menlo-Atherton and Sequoia (high schools) deliver for our students every day. Let’s keep the focus on students.”
Cruz said the recall is about pol itics, not accountability, and she’s dedicated more than 20 years of her life to education. She said her purpose is to ensure every student has access to resources, support and opportunities, and the recall will cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“That is money that belongs in our classrooms, not funding a political agenda,” Cruz said.
Doing the job
Thompson said her job as a board member is to consider all 8,800 students in the district and make decisions that are financially sustainabile.
Leach said during board meetings that the district couldn’t fund TIDE because it costs more per student than at the district’s four comprehensive high schools. TIDE spends $39,169 per student compared to $23,153 at Woodside, according to Leach.
But parents have questioned Leach and the board’s logic.
“If they are so worried about wasting resources, why did the board just vote to give Superintendent Leach a huge raise?” parent Toni Ouradnik said in a statement.
Because…of course the race card gets pulled! I don’t have a race card. I’m white. My only choice is to blame myself for other people not liking something I did.
It’s a lot of signatures to collect. If you are registered to vote but have not been paying attention to local education issues, please trust the parents on this one and sign the recall petition(s) to allow it move forward to the ballot. You can do your own research and decide later on if or how you actually want to vote. It used to be that SUHSD trustees were elected at-large, but nowadays the Trustee Areas have divvied up Redwood City (underperforming RCSD where half the students are below grade level) and this current crop do what they ‘vibe’ for Ravenswood, or San Carlos, or Belmont-RWS, Menlo Park, Woodside. >>RCSD-residents, Wake UP! Run for office and vote, because you have no sway in your high schools with these people as your representatives!!<< We're seeing a reversion to White Flight out of M-A and filling of the moat around White/High-SES-Asians-who-conveniently-still-count-as-'colored' Carlmont (Tinsley-taker vs Tinsley-exempt). Carlmont has its advanced classes intact, that's why Koo and Thompson feel safe and the rest of SUHSD can suck it with dumbing down the curriculum. 'Give them Tongan classes, it's cheaper than TIDE and that'll show them I'm not racist!' The article doesn't mention this, but not only did Superintendent Leach get a raise from these trustees despite her failure to advance educational pathways and the reputation of SUHSD, they extended her contract a year to expire in 2029, which does not seem necessary to do in 2026 but Leach tells them what to do not the other way around, and I guess she's gotta get while the gettin's good in case they are replaced. Re: "Wasting resources", it costs nothing for trustees to RESIGN rather than drag this out and keep increasing the budget for lawyering up to cover up SUHSD leadership's misdeeds, apathy and incompetence.
Maria Cruz says she’s being recalled because she’s a Latina. If the community is that anti-Hispanic, how did she get elected in the first place?
Why can’t the board members simply own that they made a bad call. People make bad decisions, we’re people. Stop making excuses, own your mistakes, and try to find a way to make up for them. That’s what good humans do. That’s what leaders do. If you can’t own your mistakes, you’re not mature enough to make decisions on behalf of over 8 thousand students and even more parents. Own it and rectify it. If that means stepping down, so be it.
(Also the board has set millions aside for legal settlements. they don’t care about it costing the students money, because those millions SHOULD be going to the students, but it’s not. they’re just saying they care because they don’t want to get recalled.)
The night that they voted to close TIDE, the trustees banded together to wait in the meeting room purposely to avoid getting spoken to in the parking lot or seeing the anguish of the TIDE community on the way to their car. If they were afraid of their constituents, frankly, any decent, moral person would do personal reflection as to why. Make public the letters urging trustees to vote the way they did and outpouring of support for evicting students from the school that was designed to be small… oh wait, there weren’t any. In an ideal world, Koo and Nori would not run again and instead use their exit platform to expose the Leach’s corruption of the process, Thompson’s “I’m from Summit Charter Schools, suddenly closing a school is my forte’, and how they were all complicit in violating the Brown Act to fast-track (think: lightning fast!) closing down the only public high school in Ravenswood. Koo was expecting that BRSSD would go on to vote to end its small K-8 programs to consolidate middle schoolers at Ralston MS to save money, but they didn’t. Was that ignorance or arrogance– at best, let’s say it showed she is “out of step” with how the community thinks about equity/small school environments, even in that part of her district within her SUHSD Area that she should know best. Nori threw in his support ‘just because’ he already knew the votes weren’t there to keep TIDE open (illegal collusion behind closed doors) and Unanimous Vote looks better for covering up the deeply problematic process used to shutter TIDE as non-issue, ‘generic decision’ just like any other demographic decline/budget cut facing CA schools. All it took to shut Nori down when he was pointing out the obvious, that why isn’t anything else at all being considered to close a budget gap, was a “Like what?” response from Ginn. Nori the trustee who would go on in a subsequent board meeting to congratulate the M-A Debate Team with extra praise because himself supposedly he was a star in it. Nori, the community sees you as a sad sack of potatoes, the only sadder sack is Cruz who said nothing at all, asked no questions, and now Cruz’ self-defense argument is that she should not be recalled _because_ she is Latina. The SUSHD Superintendent needs to be replaced, that is why the parents and community are taking the painstaking and effortful steps to recall the trustees. Koo and Nori, step aside and advocate for better candidates who are up to the task of overseeing the Superintendent or firing her. You could not do the work. If you want to keep your seat and run again, then Speak Truth to Power, shine the light and fight for transparency, and turn the tables so SUHSD does not dive down the cliff it is headed for.