East Palo Alto Academy High School, the only remaining branch of Stanford New Schools, has seen relative stability this fall after facing turmoil since spring 2010, when the school board denied the school’s request for a five-year charter renewal, instead granting a two-year extension through this year.

Stanford New Schools is a non-profit organization overseen by the Stanford School of Education. Founded in 2005, it strives to incorporate “research-based practices” through “innovative collaboration with Stanford University,” as written in its mission statement.

East Palo Alto Academy High School (EPAAHS) serves 250 to 300 students in grades 9-12 from East Palo Alto, eastern Menlo Park and Redwood City. Stanford New Schools assumed management four years after the high school opened. According to its website, 85 percent of entering freshmen who do not move away or transfer graduate on time. Of those seniors, 90 percent go on to college.

“The school is definitely off to a wonderful start this year, going off last year,” said EPAAHS principal Yetunde Reeves.

Reeves is part of the new leadership team that came in last year after 2010. The turnover included a new principle, vice principle and CEO.

The shift to a new leadership team was not the school’s only source of instability. After receiving a new charter last year, EPAAHS is currently adjusting to a new dean of the Stanford School of Education, Claude Steele. The school will also need to acclimate to a new location in East Palo Alto next year, per the two-year extension agreement.

Stanford New Schools operated a middle and elementary school until April 2010, when the Ravenswood City School District discontinued its charter for grades K-4 and 6-8. The fifth grade operated during the 2010-2011 school year so that students could transition to junior high beginning in sixth grade, but it will not resume. The decision to terminate the program was associated with the schools’ classification as “persistently low-achieving” by the state, largely because of its K-8 test scores.

Despite the high school’s successes, the school board denied Stanford’s five-year charter renewal request for the Academy in 2010.

While Stanford New Schools had agreed to gradually terminate its K-12 program, the organization defended the high school and petitioned Sequoia Union High School District for charter renewal.

On May 4 this year, the Sequoia Union High School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved the charter petition. The high school has now secured its charter for the 2012-2013 academic year and will have a new location on Myrtle Street in East Palo Alto.

“It will be a new school,” Reeves said of the change. “We are really looking at strengthening our early college program. The new school will definitely have more of a focus on [that].”

As the school’s situation becomes more stable and predictable, the faculty described the environment as becoming less stressful.

“I think overall the culture has changed,” said EPAAHS Operations and Data Specialist Gabriela Guerrero. “There are not as many fights . . . [and] there have been more student activities.”

“I can’t compare it to when I wasn’t here,” Reeves said of her position, going into her second year at the school. “I can just talk about what I see since I’ve been here [sic]. But I definitely feel like . . . we are strengthening the instructional program, working on the climate [and] preparing kids for college.”

“Obviously . . . we are just really optimistic about our future,” she said.