BY NORAH SHEPPARD-HUTCHINS
Daily Post Staff Writer
Sequoia Union High School Board incumbent Amy Koo is facing a challenge from a parent who wants to bring back honors classes, something Koo has voted to cancel.
Alon Shiran, 41, of Belmont, is running against Koo, 53, of Redwood City, for the seat that represents Belmont, San Carlos and part of Redwood City on the school board.
If Shiran is elected to the board, it is possible that honors classes for freshmen and sophomores will be reinstated. The district removed such courses from the schools in 2023 in an effort to make course material more equitable for students. Ninth grade honors biology was removed across all four schools, while ninth grade honors English was removed from Woodside, Menlo-Atherton and Sequoia. Additionally, tenth grade honors chemistry was removed from Carlmont, Menlo-Ather-ton and Sequoia.
Shiran said he wants to reopen these classes to provide students with more opportunities to excel in subjects that excite them.
“They’re trying to close the achievement gap between kids, which is a cause that I think is a good cause, but capping potential of students is the wrong way to go about it. So I think this is an example of kind of good intentions, and bad policy,” Shiran said.
There are currently two votes on the board in Rich Ginn and Sathvik Nori to reinstate the classes. Nori’s name will appear on the ballot, but he has endorsed his one-time challenger, Michael Dekshenieks, who is also in favor of honors classes.
Koo defended her vote not to reinstate honors, saying one of her main priorities is ensuring that freshmen can easily transition into the district’s high schools. Koo said the removal of some freshman honors classes has helped with the transition.
“We have honors English starting sophomore year and it allows the teachers to actually observe all the students that are coming in from different middle schools and see for themselves how the students are doing in the classroom,” Koo said.
Both Koo and Shiran say the district needs to improve communication with families. Some families have been outraged by the lack of communication surrounding anti-semitism in the district and the closure of the Menlo Park magnet school TIDE Academy, leading to lawsuits.
In February, the board voted to close TIDE Academy, a STEM-focused school that had less than 200 students, because of declining enrollment and a budget deficit.
This decision received a lot of backlash from parents; a group of parents sued the school district, asking a judge to stop them from closing TIDE, which ultimately failed.
“There’s probably some things that we could have done better in terms of communication, but the ultimate decision to close was the right one,” Koo said.
Shiran said he’s unsure if the decision to close TIDE was the right one, in part because of the lack of communication about the reasoning and lack of outreach to parents.
But Koo said the district’s communication has improved since the rotating door of superintendents has stopped. Between 2020 and 2023, the district had three superintendents in Mary Streshly, Darnise Williams and current superintendent, Crystal Leach.
Although Koo believes there have been improvements, more could be done.
“I think for me there’s still more we could do in terms of getting input from the community and acting on it,” Koo said. “So something I’m interested in is just making sure people know what the path of escalation is, because it’s not clear to everyone if they have feedback for an issue.”
Shiran said a lack of community involvement from the board is one of the main issues he’s heard from parents while on the campaign trail.
“(There’s) the general feeling that some of the board members have been representing more of the administration rather than the community who votes for them and who they are actually supposed to represent,” Shiran said.
Shiran also mentioned Concerned Jewish Parents of Sequoia Union High School District who sued the district in 2024 for anti-semitism.
“I think we have to make sure that we listen to the families and are responsive,” Shiran said. “Some of the lawsuits, I’ve talked to the families that were part of the anti-semitism one, for example, and that got to a lawsuit because they felt that they weren’t heard for months and so they realized, okay, maybe the only way to actually make a change here is to take this to court.”
The district serves about 9,000 students from ninth through twelfth grade across its four comprehensive high schools and two nontraditional schools between Belmont and East Palo Alto.
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