On Thursday, March 5, families in the Archie Williams High School (AWHS) community were emailed by AWHS principal Jacob Gran on the reduction of the TEAM program to a one-year, senior-only model for the 2026-27 school year. 

TEAM, an outdoor focused program at AWHS, served as a two year course with juniors and seniors. Due to budget cuts mandated by the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) Board of Trustees, Jacob Gran and the AWHS administration cut the program to just seniors.

The decision came as a surprise to the TEAM community, including Diana Goldberg, the current teacher of the program.

“During a meeting about my leave, the rug was pulled out from under us. Our TEAM teachers have not been included in any way to build or reconstruct a new model. Two weeks ago, when finally given a chance to be heard on some of my ideas to lift the constraints suggested, I was shut down and belittled,” Goldberg said. “TEAM was never meant to be senior-only. [Former TEAM teacher] Chuck Ford’s vision for Team was for juniors-only due to the tremendous changes in their lives during this year. Eliminating junior year is eliminating the most impactful year of the program.”

Gran spoke to the community at an April board meeting to address questions, concerns and complaints voiced by the AWHS community.

“The goal of this decision is about making sure that TEAM can continue and sustain itself in a comprehensive high school,” Gran said. “I do want to see this program continue. I do believe that it can continue and sustain itself at Archie Williams High School. It also means that we have to be able to make difficult decisions that are in line with building a master schedule that meets the needs of the entire high school.”

Gran heavily cited issues with the AWHS master schedule as reason for the program’s reduction. Because TEAM is defined as a singleton class, meaning that it occurs once per school day, it cannot be moved to different periods and is prioritized first in schedule-making since it’s the most constraining.

“Every priority that you have in a master schedule creates a constraint,” Gran said. “The more singleton courses that you put into a schedule, the more bottlenecks that occur. The ultimate consequence of a bottleneck is you get to August and you have students that cannot access a core class.”

Gran further cited concerns over scores on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) scores. Students in TEAM scored 52 percent in proficiency in English and 27 percent in Math, while the greater AWHS student body scored 67 percent proficiency in English and 55 percent in Math. However, according to TEAM parent Brendan Mullins, low CAASPP scores don’t reflect an issue with TEAM.

“The majority of the test is from ninth and tenth grade, even some years before,” Mullins said. “It is no reflection of what is taught [during junior year when students are] in TEAM. It is all that stuff that’s taught the years before.”

Mullins also cited potential score skewing since the CAASPP scores from TEAM reflect the overall scores of 26 students.

Gran also adduced out-of-school activities, such as the six day trip that juniors take to Joshua Tree National Park.

“I have been told by different staff of mine concerns for juniors. They are missing eight days of math and science instruction from their multi‑day trips,” Gran said. “That is significant, and I’m not going to sugarcoat that.”

Some parents disagreed with Gran’s views on out-of-school activities. Mullins explained the misconception that he believes Gran is following.

“[People think that] TEAM is just this [class] that’s constantly out hiking and camping, when in reality, that’s like 15 percent of the time. Most of the time, TEAM is English, TEAM is economics and TEAM is government.”

Currently, TEAM is still slated to be reduced to a senior-only class for the 2026-27 school year. Although members of the TEAM community called for the board to take action, the TUHSD Board of Trustees has not announced an action item in regards to reversing or changing the plan for future meeting agendas.

However, according to Goldberg, a petition to change the decision to implement a redone two year program has been signed by over 1,500 members in the community, and over 70 students are interested in the program for next year.