On Jan 14., 2026, the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) board of trustees reconvened for the first time this year after nearly a month-long hiatus. The board met together at the Kreps Conference center to discuss a plethora of new topics.

During closed discussion, the board approved the settlement agreement in Aaron Doe vs. TUHSD, settling in a payment of $700,000 to plaintiff Aaron Doe. The board also voted unanimously on two other settlements to pay two anonymous plaintiffs $150,000 each. Board President Cynthia Roenisch announced the decision that all three of these settlements were in agreement for plaintiffs to, “waiver and release all claims against District and its former and current Employees and agents for dismissal.”

The board ended their closed session by passing the Waiver of Graduation Requirement Student A, allowing students to graduate by meeting state requirements instead of the usually stricter local rules.

The board pivoted discussion to recognizing the achievements of the Redwood High School boys water polo team during their 2025-26 season. Redwood principal Barnaby Payne introduced the team during the meeting. 

“This is amazing to be able to stand up here and honor the hard work of our student athletes, and in particular our Redwood boys varsity water polo team, who have achieved something never done before in our district, in water polo: a triple crown,” Payne said. 

Redwood’s boys water polo team placed first in Marin County Athletic League, first in North Coast Section Division 1 and first in the Northern California State Championship in the second division. Coach of the team Rudy Kardos gave a speech about the achievements during their season.

“This was a team effort. Like anything else in team sports, you can’t do it alone. The players can’t do it alone. And I couldn’t be more proud of this group of young boys,” Kardos said.

Following the team’s recognition, District Superintendent Dr. Courtney Goode gave a report during the meeting regarding flooding, construction and Advanced Placement (AP) score recognitions for the three major schools in the district.

“I would like to thank and acknowledge David O’Connor, Senior Director of Maintenance and Operations, Robert Amaral, Director of Custodial Services, Lead Custodian at Redwood, Tim Mullery, Lead Custodian at Archie, Casey Graham and Lead custodian at Tamalpais, Harold Odin. They were all on site over the weekend in response to the flooding, to assess the conditions at the site, take care of any issues that had cropped up and ensure we were ready,” Goode said.

Goode also discussed the recently announced AP honor roll school list. Tamalpais High School received a bronze distinction for having 76 percent of their graduating class taking at least one AP exam, with 65 percent of students passing at least one. Redwood High School was awarded a platinum distinction with 82 percent of the graduating class taking an AP exam and 77 percent passing. Archie failed to win a distinction due to a lack of AP exam enrollment from ninth and tenth graders.

Following the superintendent report, juniors Everett Fredricks and Adriella Marcus presented a proposal on the adoption of the State Seal of Civic Engagement, a recognition students can receive by demonstrating their abilities in civics through understanding U.S. and state constitutions, principles of democracy and the completion of a hands-on civic project.

“We’re seeking approval to continue to pursue this initiative. We’re not there yet, but we need [board] feedback, [and] support that we are on the right track with this initiative,” Payne said. 

The project has been led by Fredericks, who has worked on the project along with principal Payne and Marcus, the Student Board Trustee Representative for Redwood.

“The seal was created when Assembly Bill 24 directed the California Department of Education to create criteria to recognize and award students for excellence in civic education and to create pathways for more students to become civically engaged. This is awarded to students in eleventh or twelfth grade who show excellence in civic education as well as civic participation,” Marcus said. 

The timeline to receive the seal would include submitting an application, being appointed as an ambassador from the school’s leadership program, designing, implementing and finalizing the project with a partner organization and validating the project.

“The whole goal of the seal is to make a paradigm shift from just doing community service into having passion projects, into what somebody is really interested in and making specific changes towards that goal, instead of just towards the greater goal of a community service opportunity,” Fredericks said.

Board members worried about the legitimacy of the proposal in practice and how it would affect the leadership class as well as teachers.

“What we’re trying to do is not create additional work for teachers based on a student project that’s not been incorporated in the curriculum for leadership,” Roenisch said. “As a trustee, one of the things that we have questions about is: Who’s going to manage this? Is that going to be an additional cost to the district in paying a stipend to a teacher? Leadership students [by] themselves are not qualified to guide people [through] projects.”

Fredericks noted that in a survey of leadership classes at Archie Williams, Redwood and Tamalpais high school, 124 responses indicated that students would like to be more civically involved but struggle to find the resources to be involved in their community.

“I think you’re on the right track,” board trustee Kevin Saavedra said.“I just think there’s a lot more structure here that would help us evaluate and then give the endorsement.” 

This is the first proposal of the Seal of Civic Engagement; an updated proposal will be presented at a future meeting.

Following the proposition on the State Seal of Civic Engagement, the board moved onto an update on the TUHSD Artificial Intelligence (AI) Task Force. The task force has been working on updating academic honesty policies, developing staff and student literacy with AI and understanding the use of “Human-Centered AI.”

Paula Berry, Senior Director of Curriculum and Instruction at TUHSD, has led the AI Task Force for the district.

“Upon the release of OpenAI in 2022, I was receiving multiple emails from our staff that were both emails of curiosity and concern, and there was a lot of questions why the district hasn’t been doing anything. I felt the need to begin a task force,” Berry said. 

The task force has created a student use scale that ranges from no AI assistance in the classroom to AI as a co-creator in students’ work. Concerns were raised by the board about the use of AI in classrooms, for instructional uses and learning uses.

“[AI is] not a tool for learning, and our job is learning here in this district. And if a kid gets used to asking AI, they’re going to default to asking AI,” Roenisch said. “[AI] is trying to flatten the skills and make our learning more shallow.”