Tamalpais High School (often abbreviated as Tam) is a public secondary school located in Mill Valley, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is named after nearby Mount Tamalpais, which rises almost above Mill Valley.
Tamalpais High School is the original campus of the Tamalpais Union High School District and the second public high school in Marin County. As of 2007, Tam's attendance area includes the cities of Mill Valley and Sausalito, the nearby unincorporated areas of Marin City, Strawberry and Tamalpais-Homestead Valley, and the West Marin communities of Muir Beach, Bolinas and Stinson Beach."SCHOOLS in the Tamalpais Union High School District and communities served ." Tamalpais Union High School District. Retrieved on April 1, 2010. Mill Valley School District is the largest feeder for Tam, followed by the Sausalito Marin City School District and the Bolinas-Stinson Union School District.
History Tamalpais Union High School District was founded in 1907, to serve students from the Mill Valley Elementary and Sausalito Elementary School Districts who had previously commuted to San Rafael to continue their education. Tamalpais Union High School held its first classes with 70 students in 1908, in tent-like structures. Ernest E. Wood took the lead in founding the District and was the first principal.Mill Valley Masons, Golden Anniversary, 1953 , accessed February 26, 2008 In its second year, there were six teachers, 100 students, and 300 volumes in the school library. California State Library, News Notes of California Libraries, Vol. 5, No. 3, page 303, 1910 , accessed February 26, 2008 By the 1913–1914 school year, enrollment had increased to 175, with eight faculty; the library holdings had grown to 650 books plus subscriptions to eight magazines and two newspapers.California State Library, News Notes of California Libraries, Vol. 9, No. 2, page 308, April 1914 , accessed February 26, 2008
Known in its early years as Tamalpais Polytechnic High School, Tam was a comprehensive high school from its beginning, with a curriculum that included both academic subjects and technical training. In an interview with the local newspaper the year before he died, Principal Wood said, "I believe the students learned by doing things. I believe in the philosophy of students getting in and doing work and accomplishing things." Architecture students designed the first building on campus, and students built several structures there over the years.
For a while, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad ran what they called the "School Special, a special 5-car train running from Manor to Tamalpais High School via Almonte. 2 of the cars on the school special were separated by gender - 1 boys-only car and 1 girls-only car.
News On February 27, 1967, after a year of increased racial tension and disturbances, regular classes were canceled for "Breakthrough Day," a student-initiated teach-in on race relations. All students and faculty met in Mead Theater and then broke out into discussion groups around campus. The event was widely covered by local and national media.COAST STUDENTS HOLD RACIAL TALK; Bishop Observes Attempts to Seek Solution to Tension New York Times, February 28, 1967, p. 40 , accessed February 27, 2008 In 1981, Antenna Theater premiered Chris Hardman's High School at Tam during the fourth Bay Area Playwrights Festival. The work introduced Hardman's performance art concept, "Walkmanology," with Sony Walkmans providing the narration to audience members as they walked the Tam campus observing the story.Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times, A Playwright's Festival Gains in the Process", August 1981 accessed March 12, 2007, at the Antenna Theater site In 1982, Antenna presented the Pink Prom at Tam. In this play, unrehearsed student actors wore the Walkmans, which provided their stage direction, while the audience interacted with the actors and each other.Bernard Weiner, San Francisco Chronicle, "A Time-Warp 'Pink Prom' in Mill Valley", August 3, 1982 , accessed March 12, 2007, at the Antenna Theater site Antenna Theater later spun off its Walkmanology concept to Antenna Audio, which has become a leading international producer of audio tours for museums and other attractions. In the 1989–1990 school year, members of the student body petitioned to formally remove the school's original mascot "Indians" at the interdiction of Sacheen Littlefeather, a pretendian Marin County resident and activist for Native American causes. The original mascot had been chosen to recognize the area's indigenous inhabitants, the Miwoks, and was represented by illustrations (both dignified and caricature), costumed performers, and, beginning in the 1960s, a wooden sculpture named Charlie. Sports teams were identified only as "Tam" for the fall and winter seasons of that school year. A schoolwide contest was held, and the Red Tailed Hawks was chosen as the winner, beating out other entries such as Mountaineers and Locomotives. The Red Tailed Hawk logo and mascot was adopted beginning in the 1990–1991 school year. Tam High was one of the first American institutions to remove a "politically incorrect" Native American moniker. On May 9, 1990, following the death of history teacher Charles Smith due to complications from AIDS, Principal Barbara Galyen announced that students had persuaded the administration to allow the school nurse to distribute free condoms. Tam would have been the first high school in California to dispense prophylactics without parent approval,, accessed March 1, 2008 were it not for the immediate uproar. The controversial plan was objected to by several parents, as well as San Francisco Archbishop John R. Quinn, all calling for it to be rescinded., accessed March 1, 2008 The following week, after the parents of one student threatened to sue, the district postponed the program indefinitely.Jim Herron Zamora, Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1990, page A-34, "High School Agrees to Delay Distribution of Condoms" , accessed March 1, 2008 In June, Sausalito pharmacist Fred Mayer, originator of "Condom Week" in 1979, announced that he would give free condoms to high school students that summer., accessed March 1, 2008 Despite the program being deferred, a suit was filed in June. On August 1, the Marin County Superior Court denied the request for an injunction, since the district had not approved the program., accessed March 1, 2008 About 1990, Tam initiated the Condom Availability Program, which provides free condoms to students who have received parental permission and completed a training session.Tamalpais High School, Condom Availability Program (CAP) accessed March 1, 2008 In 1997, Tam sophomore Ari Hoffman won a Marin County science fair, showing that fruit flies exposed to different doses of radiation had increased mutation rates and reduced fertility in proportion to the dose. He was subsequently disqualified from the Bay Area Science Fair when officials ruled that his experiment, which resulted in the premature death of 35 of the 200 drosophila, had violated rules on the use of live animals.Lore of the Flies, Dave's Page of Bogus Science web site, Detroit News, pp 8A 1997-03-21, accessed 2007-03-07 After widespread news coverage, Hoffman was contacted by Nobel laureate Edward B. Lewis, a geneticist who had begun his own work with fruit flies while in high school. Lewis congratulated Hoffman for his work and sent him a check.Howard D. Lipshitz, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VOL. 150, NO. 2, JUNE 2006, "Edward B. Lewis Biographical Memoir, pp393-394 , accessed 2007-03-07 The science fair prize was reinstated. (As of 2009, after graduating from Stanford University and completing classwork at the University of California San Francisco Medical School, Hoffman is a predoctoral fellow in bioethics in the Clinical Research Training Program at the intramural campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.) Parents of four African-American students from Tam filed a class-action lawsuit against the Novato Unified School District and administrators at San Marin High School over racial slurs made by San Marin students at a basketball game in 1998, charging that a "climate of intolerance" was allowed at San Marin. The Marin County Athletic League put San Marin on probation for a year because of racial insensitivity.Fiona Morgan, salon.com, "Pride and prejudice: Is Novato, California, a breeding ground for hatred – or just like every other American suburb?", 1999-04-29 , accessed 2007-03-07The Economist, "Hate Crimes Continue to Increase Nationally – Even in Wealthy Suburbs", 1999-02-27 , accessed 2007-03-07Dave Allen, Marin Independent Journal, February 7, 2008, "Parents' behavior prompts code of conduct at San Marin High" , accessed February 11, 2007 In 2001, students from Tam and other high schools in the TUHSD formed Marin Students for Liberating Education to discuss the number of prerequisite classes and level of testing., accessed April 18, 2008 Large numbers of grade 9, 10, and 11 students at Tam and Drake High School boycotted the Stanford-9 achievement tests required by the State's STAR Program after their parents signed waivers. The boycott had been endorsed by school board member Richard Raznikov. Since more than 10% of the students missed the test (22% at Tam and 35% at Drake), the two schools were not given Academic Performance Index (API) rankings, making the schools ineligible for the funds distributed by the State to high-scoring schools. (The three comprehensive high schools in the District, Tam, Drake, and Redwood, received approximately $750,000 in 2000, including individual $1000 scholarships awarded to 339 high-scoring students).Kelly St. John, San Francisco Chronicle, "Marin students boycott state test: Schools left ineligible for state reward funds", 2001-05-04 , accessed 2007-03-06 Raznikov resigned from the board of trustees in 2002, citing the testing controversy among the reasons. Tam was the subject of local controversy during the 2004–2005 school year when several anti-gay crimes, targeting a 17-year-old female student wrestler, received coverage in the Associated Press and the local newspapers.Marin Independent Journal, "Mill Valley Students Rally Against Hate After Gay-Bashing Incidents at School", December 11, 2004 , accessed 2007-01-31 at whatkidscando.org When the police investigation suggested the "crimes" were staged, they confronted the "victim" with the evidence causing the student to confess to the hoax. Subsequent coverage of the hoax received even greater attention in the media and blogosphere.Michelle Malkin, "Another Hate Crime Hoax", May 9, 2005 , accessed 2007-01-31San Francisco Chronicle, "Alleged gay-bashing at Marin high school a hoax, police said", May 8, 2005, AP Breaking News, based on information from the Marin Independent Journal accessed 2007-01-31 On January 4, 2006, the former president of Tam's Associated Student Body, Nima Shaterian, took his own life.San Francisco Chronicle, "The darkness behind his perfect smile" , January 15, 2006 A citywide memorial was held in Mill Valley.Letter dated 2006-01-05, from Principal Chris Holleran to the Tam Community regarding "Death of Nima Shaterian, Class of 2005", accessed 2007-01-01 In January 2007, junior Clive Barry also committed suicide.San Francisco Chronicle, "Parents reflect, schools mobilize to curb suicide" 2007-01-22 ; Clinical psychologist Madeline Levine, who studied families in Marin County, hypothesized in her book, The Price of Privilege, that teens from affluent families are often plagued with more psychological distress.