It is tough to return to conventional high school after a year of valuable life lessons, community service projects, and hands-on learning experiences. Yet after learning about her inner values and realizing the aspects of society she finds significant, senior Alex Deleon carries back to Redwood a different perspective on life.

Team is a one-year program available to juniors sponsored by the Tamalpais Union High School District that admits a diverse student body from high schools within the district.

“At the end, everyone cares about each other,” said Deleon, describing the relationship between herself and her peers at Team. “Our year especially, there was a very diverse group of kids, and that’s really cool how everyone can be friends even though we’re all really different.”

For some students, a change in routine is needed, and the Team program provides an opportunity to learn outside of a classroom.  In Deleon’s case, she joined Team after realizing her boredom with regular school and the fun the program entailed.

“At first I thought, ‘I don’t think I’m going to like many of these people,’ but if you put any number of people together they’re going to form some sort of bond,” Deleon said.

A large portion of the program’s curriculum consists of first-hand career experience, such as internships with local businesses, and field trips, including backpacking trips in the Joshua Tree National Park and leadership ropes course training.

The trips that gave Deleon a different perspective on life and materialism stood out most, such as the 11-day backpacking trip to the Sierra Nevadas.

“In a deeper way, I’d say after the Sierras, even though we were so tired and gross, we didn’t really want to go back home just because when you’re backpacking, things are a lot simpler. You have a setlist to do,” Deleon said.  “Wake up, clean up camp, go hiking.  At the end our trip we were saying things that we were thankful for and what we learned, and lots of people were saying, ‘Now I know money just isn’t as important.’”

Some Team students choose to finish their senior year either by being homeschooled or by taking classes at Tamiscal because they prefer the environment to Redwood, but Deleon chose to return to regular school.

“I heard from past ‘Teamies’ that coming back to big schools like Redwood, Tam, or Drake would be hard,” Deleon said. “I thought it’d be terrible but it’s not that bad.  It varies from person to person.  For me it’s not as hard as it could be, but for a few of my friends, they didn’t go back to their home schools and just stayed at Tamiscal because they liked the vibes better.”

While reflecting on her year at Team, Deleon recognized the social strains of conventional high schools.

“Redwood is just like all other high schools,” Deleon said. “It’s not better or worse. It’s just that at high school there’s a little bit of pressure to be like everyone else so people will like you, and at Team, it takes away all that pressure, which I think is awesome.”

This year’s Team class consists of 27 students who come from all three major schools around the Tamalpais Union High School District.