The District Board of Trustees held their final meeting of 2024 on Wednesday, Dec. 18. The Board heard new analysis on the effects of detracking conducted by Hanover Research, an independent research firm. Members of the Sequoia District Teachers Association and District parents voiced their opinions on the study. The Board also swore in recently elected trustees and approved their 2025 financial plan.
Swearing-in of New Trustees
Prior to the Board’s open session, returning trustee Richard Ginn and new trustees Mary Beth Thompson and Maria Cruz took their oaths of office. This was the first board meeting for Thompson and Cruz, while Ginn is serving his second term.
Thompson previously served as the executive director of Summit Prep, a charter school under the District. She recently quit her position at Summit to avoid conflict of interest. Cruz is a professor at San Jose State University and has a son at M-A.
“I am very pleased to welcome both Dr. Cruz and Ms. Thompson to the Board and to congratulate you on your new organization,” SDTA president Edith Salvatore said during public comment.
Public Comment on Detracking Study
District staff and community members spoke in anticipation of Hanover Research’s study on the impacts of detracking. The independent analysis, which cost around $54,000, was commissioned by the District after their own 2023 report was met with criticism about bias from the community.
Liane Strub, head of M-A’s English Department, defended the rigor and preparedness offered by M-A’s freshman Multicultural Literature and Voice course, which replaced AS English I in 2021. “In the last few days my seniors, who started high school in MCLV, have been pulling me aside to share joyous news,” she said, describing students who had been accepted to prestigious universities. “Their joy is my joy as I’ve been privileged to share their academic journey for a few years,” she said.
“Over the years, my colleagues have worked tirelessly to design and refine this curriculum, and the results speak for themselves,” M-A science teacher Rachel Richards said. “Our SBAC scores have improved, and our students are scoring higher on AP exams.”
Other community members spoke against detracking. “Is the elimination of honors [classes] what our customers, i.e., the students and their parents, want? The answer is no,” one parent said.
Lisa Giannangeli, director of Stanford’s MBA Admissions Office and a community parent, brought up concerns about detracking courses’ impact on college admissions. “I am very concerned about removing honors opportunities and streamlining because I think there are a lot of unintended impacts that I see on the admission side that others might not have privy to see,” she said. “Institutions absolutely look at the academic rigor of courses, even from your first year in high school.”
This runs counter to advice from undergraduate college admissions firms, who say that colleges evaluate course difficulty in the context of the high school and its course offerings. “Colleges always consider applicants within the context of their school. If our school doesn’t offer AS courses at certain times—or if we didn’t offer them at all—colleges can’t penalize students for something they can’t take or isn’t available to them,” M-A college counselor Mai Lien Nguyen previously told the M-A Chronicle.
Presenting the Detracking Report
Dr. Matt Ragone, senior director of K-12 content at Hanover Research and former high school principal, outlined the report’s findings in a detailed presentation. Hanover Research’s results largely aligned with the District’s 2023 study, which Ragone found to be statistically sound and without intentional bias. Detracking freshman and sophomore classes did not appear to have negative effects on AP enrollment and exam scores later in high school.
“The data shows that streamlining grade nine science likely led to improvements in science academic performance, both in enrollment and in achievement,” Ragone said. Hanover Research found similar results for detracked English classes.
“There are still challenges with SED student performance and opportunities,” Ragone acknowledged. He recommended that the District continue researching the long-term impacts of detracking, enhance support systems for socio-economically disadvantaged, or SED, students, and work with middle schools to ensure readiness for high school academics.
In response to a question from trustee Ginn on why detracking did little to increase the number of SED students taking advanced classes, Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Bonnie Hansen clarified that this was only one objective of detracking. “That was not the only objective,” she said. “Even if it had been the only target, I think that the rise in [meeting] A-G and graduation requirements without harming students who were doing well before is more important.”
“This, to me, seems pretty fantastic that all of our students are scoring as high as they are on these AP and IB advanced classes and exams,” Thompson said in response to the data.
