an appeal to the California Department of Education

As detailed extensively in the UCP Complaint, the facially neutral practice underlying the racial and ethnic discrimination in the STEM Marin Program described above is the admissions process, which uses vague procedures, and vague and subjective criteria untethered to STEM academics that invite racial and ethnic bias, to evaluate students for admission into the program. [...] A key point at which racial and ethnic bias creeps into the STEM Marin Program student admissions is at the very beginning of the process, when the District invites the applying student’s eight-grade science teacher to submit comments about the student.14 As detailed in the UCP Complaint, “[a]ccording to documents received from the District [pursuant to the PRA request], if ‘a student is not recom. [...] The District’s written component (which is described as “admissions essays” in the UCP Complaint and “short-answer scenario prompts” in the District’s Decision) does not evaluate student skills needed for success in a science or math program such as the STEM Marin Program.20 The District’s Decision claims that the “intent of the written component is to gauge a student’s interest and background in. [...] The gender, race, and ethnic make[-up] of the program has become closer to that of the full school community as a result of these reviews.”25 It is unclear from this response if the “program” referred to here is the STEM Marin Program, one of the other two academic programs at San Marin High School, or San Marin High School programs in the aggregate. [...] Provided below is information obtained through the Public Records Act (PRA}, the California Department of Education data website, and the District website which: I.) Detail the opacity, and the vague, subjective criteria of the admissions process, which serves to privilege White students from higher- income backgrounds, 11.) Present the disparities in the ethnic/racial composition of the STEM prog.