Tamalpais Union High School District · 2020–2026
The district already
collects this data.Nobody is acting on it.
Every number on this page comes from the district's own reporting — state test results, the California Healthy Kids Survey, board grade reports and the district's own accountability plans. Across ten measures of how students are doing, the distance between Black and White students got wider on six, stayed flat on two, and closed on two. Over the same five years, the board removed most of the programs built to close it.
Ten measures, five years
Each chart shows the most recent year reported. The blue bar is the distance between Black and White students, measured in percentage points — the gap itself, drawn to scale.
School climate
Whether students feel safe, welcome and able to show up.
Harassment
Reported being harassed at school in the past 12 months, 2024
- Gap in 2022
- 13 pts
- Gap in 2024
- 17 pts
- Since 2022
- Widened
Black students: 36% in 2022, 41% in 2024. California Healthy Kids Survey, averaged across grades.
Safety
Say they feel safe at school, 2024
- Gap in 2022
- 21 pts
- Gap in 2024
- 22 pts
- Since 2022
- No improvement
Black students: 62% in 2022, 63% in 2024. California Healthy Kids Survey, averaged across grades.
Connection
Say they feel connected to their school, 2024
- Gap in 2022
- 27 pts
- Gap in 2024
- 28 pts
- Since 2022
- No improvement
Black students: 45% in 2022, 47% in 2024. California Healthy Kids Survey, averaged across grades.
Attendance
Missed 10% or more of the school year, 2025
- Gap in 2022
- 18 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 24 pts
- Since 2022
- Widened
Black students: 30.3% in 2022, 37.4% in 2025. Ed-Data.org.
Suspension
Suspended at least once during the school year, 2025
- Gap in 2022
- 2.9 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 8 pts
- Since 2022
- Widened
Black students: 3% in 2022, 9% in 2025. Ed-Data.org. Note the 0–20% scale..
Academic outcomes
Grades, proficiency, course access and readiness for college.
Course grades
Received at least one D, F or Incomplete semester grade, 2025
- Gap in 2022
- 21 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 40 pts
- Since 2022
- Widened
Black students: 29% in 2022, 48% in 2025. District board report.
English
Proficient in English language arts, 2025
- Gap in 2021
- 41.5 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 48 pts
- Since 2021
- Widened
Black students: 37.5% in 2021, 27% in 2025. Ed-Data.org.
Math
Proficient in mathematics, 2025
- Gap in 2022
- 50.1 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 49 pts
- Since 2022
- Narrowed
Black students: 14.3% in 2022, 9% in 2025. Ed-Data.org.
Advanced Placement
Enrolled in one or more AP courses, 2025
- Gap in 2022
- 24 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 26 pts
- Since 2022
- Widened
Black students: 20% in 2022, 27% in 2025. District LCAP reports.
College readiness
Completed the A–G coursework required for UC and CSU, 2025
- Gap in 2022
- 45 pts
- Gap in 2025
- 37 pts
- Since 2022
- Narrowed
Black students: 29% in 2022, 50% in 2025. District LCAP reports.
The honest tally. Of the ten measures above, the Black–White gap widened on six, showed no meaningful improvement on two, and narrowed on two. A-G college-readiness completion is the real bright spot: it rose for every group, and the Black–White gap closed by eight points.
The math gap is the one place a narrowing number misleads. It shrank by roughly a point — but only because White proficiency fell too. Black proficiency dropped from 14% to 9% over the same period. A gap can close while everyone is losing ground.
Where the numbers moved at all for Black students, they mostly moved the wrong way: harassment up, chronic absence up, D/F/I grades up nineteen points, English proficiency down ten, math down five.
Why we measure belonging, not just test scores
The first five charts are about safety, harassment and connection. That isn't a detour from academics. It is one of the better-established findings in education research.
Belonging predicts achievement
A student's sense of being known and included at school is one of the more reliable predictors of how they perform in it. It shapes motivation, persistence and willingness to take on hard work.
Discrimination has measurable academic cost
Experiencing racial hostility at school produces chronic stress that depresses engagement and learning outcomes. The effect shows up in the classroom, not only in how students feel.
National Library of Medicine · American Psychological Association
Gaps are a measurement tool
Tracking outcomes by group is how a district finds out where opportunity is missing and where to direct resources. Stop disaggregating the data and you lose the ability to see the problem, not the problem itself.
California districts are required to identify and address outcome gaps for significant racial and ethnic groups as part of the accountability plan process (Education Code § 52052). This is not optional reporting.
Built, then taken apart
The district spent four years building the structures that address these gaps, and roughly eighteen months removing them.
The district commits, and staffs the commitment
An antiracist resolution in 2020, a racial equity policy in 2022, and an accountability plan that made closing these gaps a central goal. To carry it out the district created a Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a Racial Justice Task Force with an expert facilitator, an ethnic studies curriculum team, a youth advisory, a Marin City coalition, and the Black Student Success Team and Hub at Tamalpais High.
A new board majority removes the structures
- The DEI director position was eliminated in December 2025, folded into a school consolidation plan without a separate agenda item or public discussion.
- The Racial Justice Task Force lost its facilitator contract and its $80,000 budget mid-year. Membership fell from more than fifty to a handful.
- The Black Student Success Team's leadership contracts were ended on a 3–2 vote, after offers of outside funding — including from the county superintendent — were declined.
- The superintendent who had designed the plan left in the summer of 2025.
- The 2026–27 accountability plan contains no budget line for the Hub, and its board presentation does not mention race or the gaps above.
| Commitment | Budgeted 2024–25 | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Districtwide student learning events on race and bias | $114,000 | Cut to $20,000, then eliminated |
| Mentoring, mediation and academic support for students of color | $120,000 | Cut to $66,000 |
| Dean of Student Success, San Andreas continuation school | $180,000 | Eliminated |
| Racial Justice Task Force | $80,000 | Eliminated |
| Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion | $67,594 | Eliminated |
| Youth Advisory for Racial Justice | $12,500 | Eliminated |
| Roughly, against a $128 million annual budget | ~$400,000 | 0.3% |
For scale: the district spends more than $15 million a year on special education programming. The equity line was never a budget problem. It was a priority decision.
How to check this
Every figure here is public. We would rather you verify it than take our word for it, so here is exactly where it comes from and where it is imperfect.
Sources
Ed-Data.org and the California School Dashboard for test proficiency, absence and suspension. District board reports for semester grades. District accountability plans for AP and A-G completion. The California Healthy Kids Survey for harassment, safety and connection.
What we did to the survey data
The Healthy Kids Survey reports results split by race and grade, which produces dozens of small figures that can't be compared directly. We averaged responses across grades within each racial group. That is the step that makes the trend visible, and it is the step to check first if you want to test our numbers.
Known limits
Some district reporting is not broken out by race at all, and some drops Black students entirely when the group is small — which is also why small-sample years should be read with caution. Sources occasionally disagree by a point or two. We flag the bright spots and the narrowing gaps rather than only the bad ones.
Terms
“Gap” means the difference in percentage points between Black and White students in the same year, not a percentage change. Group labels follow the source data. Asian and Latinx students are shown on every chart even where the narrative focuses on the widest gaps.
Three seats. Use all three votes.
The board sets district policy, hires the superintendent and approves the budget. It is the level at which this record was made, and the level at which it can change.
Data and analysis drawn from the TUHSD Racial Equity Report Card 2020–2026, prepared by MVFREE (mvfree.org), and from district records obtained through the California Public Records Act. Charts on this page were rebuilt from the underlying figures; gap calculations are our own. Corrections welcome.