Tamalpais Union school district adds support for students of color
Frustrated by limited progress on equity, Tamalpais Union High School District trustees approved four consultant contracts totaling $430,000 to support students of color for the 2024-25 school year.
Trustees voted 4-0, with trustee Kevin Saavedra absent, at a special meeting Friday, on three of the four contracts. On the fourth, a contract with OLAS Consulting, the vote was 3-1, with trustee Karen Loebbaka voting no. The votes came after several racial incidents in the 2023-24 school year rocked Tamalpais High School, prompting student and community protests.
Board president Leslie Harlander said the district has been working on the issue of racial equity for years, including the formation of a racial justice committee and approving the name change from Sir Francis Drake High School to Archie Williams High School.
“You’re not looking at people who don’t care,” Harlander said. “We’ve been learning every day about the hardships families suffer, particularly people of color.”
The vote on Friday awarded a $100,000 contract to Marin City activist Paul Austin, the founder of the recreation nonprofit Play Marin. Austin will be expected to be present at Tam High on Tuesdays and Thursdays to offer “coaching and mentorship focusing on academic achievement, interpersonal relationships, goal setting and career development,” according to the contract.
His specific goals are to “decrease the number of discipline referrals for Black students; create a success plan for each student on the caseload and monitor progress bi-weekly; and increase engagement of Black families at Tam High community events.”
Austin’s wife, veteran Marin school administrator Tenisha Tate, will receive $150,000 for overseeing each student’s progress. Tate, founder and chief executive officer of Critical Friends LLC, a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy organization, will work with the Tam High “Black Student Success Support Team to ensure student success and achievement,” the contract states.
Her focus will be to oversee support plans for Black students and to “coordinate service providers and community-based organizations that provide support to Black students at THS,” the contract states. She will also oversee professional development for Tam High staff and “facilitate weekly meetings focusing on Black student success.”
Specific expected outcomes for Tate include: increasing the number of Black students who graduate having met the graduation requirements to attend state universities; increasing the number of Black students participating in leadership opportunities at the school site; and improving “cultural competence of staff as evidenced by Black student’s reporting a stronger sense of connection to school and feeling valued by the staff as reported on the California Healthy Kids Survey,” the contract states.
In addition, the board hired Lisa Jimenez of OLAS Consulting for an $80,000 contract to work with superintendent Tara Taupier for operational support for the district’s racial justice committee. She will be paid $450 per hour for 16 hours of work per month for 11 months of the contract.
Keith Jackson of Dynamic Solutions for Youth will be paid $100,000 for mentoring and coaching students at all five Tam Union high schools. Jackson will be present one day per week at each school to meet with students and staff for counseling and conflict resolution. He also will work with students who are suspended or expelled.
In addition to each contractors’ specific goals, they will all be expected to achieve the same equity outcomes districtwide. Those are to increase Black student attendance by 20% over the prior school year, and reduce the number of Black students finishing the 2024-2025 credit-deficient in math/science/social studies and English by 20% from the previous school year.
They are also charged with reducing the number of Black students with DFI grades by 20% from 2023-2024 to 2024-2025 and increasing student perception of safety and belonging on campus among Black students, as measured on the October Youth Truth Survey.
Trustees said that their scrutiny of the contracts is part of an effort to be fiscally responsible. The board needs to review all contracts to make sure there was not a duplication of efforts.
“We want to look at all the outsourcing to see if it’s working,” trustee Cynthia Roenisch said. “We want to see whether to redirect resources.”
Her statements were in response to some public criticism for pulling the contracts out of the consent agenda from last Tuesday’s board meeting. The contracts were pulled in order to have more time to review them, the trustees said.
Roenisch said it is important to ask the hard questions in public to make sure that the money being spent was getting the intended results.
“I welcome the transparency,” she said. “I don’t want to shy away.”
Trustee Karen Loebbaka said she voted no on the OLAS Consulting contract because of the $450 per hour fee. She said later that she “was not confident that Lisa Jimenez has the appropriate contacts or connections to make the community events a success. She may, but I’m not sure,” Loebbaka said.
She added that being fiscally responsible was separate from any intentions for helping students of color.
“I want to emphasize that this meeting is not about whether we support our BIPOC students,” Loebbaka said, referring to students who are Black, Indigenous and people of color. “We do and we have and will continue to do so.”
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