If you have a kid at White Hill Middle School (or you’ve got a 5th grader who’ll be there in August, or a White Hill alum already at Archie Williams High), Measure H is on your June 2, 2026 ballot for a different reason than at the four RVSD elementaries: every RVSD elementary student matriculates to White Hill, and White Hill is the only RVSD school where the Tier 2 cuts directly remove a class from your kid’s schedule.
This page is a White Hill–specific look at Measure H: what the parcel tax funds at White Hill, what the second-elective cut in Tier 2 actually means in practical terms, and the case for voting Yes from a White Hill family’s perspective.
Our recommendation: Yes on Measure H. White Hill serves about 628 students in grades 6 through 8 on a 22-acre campus at 101 Glen Drive in western Fairfax. It is the only middle school in RVSD — every Brookside, Hidden Valley, Manor, and Wade Thomas student matriculates here for three years. Tier 1 stipend cuts at White Hill are already in motion for FY 2026-27 regardless of how Measure H goes; Tier 2 cuts the second elective from every student’s schedule if Measure H fails on June 2. We recommend voting Yes on June 2, 2026.
RVSD’s only middle school, on 22 acres in west Fairfax
White Hill opened in 1969 on a 22-acre site at the western edge of Fairfax, surrounded by hills and open space. The school replaced an earlier middle-school configuration and has been the consolidated RVSD middle school ever since.
What’s distinctive about White Hill, structurally:
- It’s the only one. RVSD has no other middle school. Whether your kid attends Brookside, Hidden Valley, Manor, or Wade Thomas for elementary, they spend grades 6–8 at White Hill. The middle-school cohort is about 628 students in 2023-24, according to Ed-Data — by far the largest RVSD school by enrollment.
- Co-principal model. White Hill is led by Mary-Clare Mullin and John Baker as co-principals. The structure reflects the scale of the school — running a 628-student 6–8 program is more like running two elementary schools than a typical TK–5 campus.
- 22-acre campus. White Hill has more outdoor space than most Marin middle schools, with the surrounding hills and open space shaping daily campus life.
- Ross Valley Charter is here too. Under Proposition 39 facilities access, Ross Valley Charter School has had eight classrooms within the White Hill complex since 2017, serving its K–5 charter program adjacent to White Hill’s 6–8 program. The relationship has been complicated for nearly a decade.[1]
The electives program — and what Tier 2 takes
This is the White Hill–specific argument, and it’s where Measure H matters most directly to your kid’s daily schedule.
White Hill’s elective program is unusually robust for a public middle school its size. Students choose from:
- Art: Studio Art, Ceramics, Digital Art & Photography, Graphic Design & Yearbook. 6th graders can sign up for a zero-period Art Explorations elective; 7th and 8th graders choose a year-long elective meeting four days per week.
- Music: White Hill’s music program produces students selected for regional and local honor ensembles every year — a meaningful achievement for a middle-school program.
- Engineering: middle-school engineering and design classes building toward project-based STEM work.
- World languages: typically Spanish at the middle-school level, with progression toward high school placement.
Most White Hill students take two electives — typically one art or music elective and one STEM or world-language elective. That’s the model that works for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders: enough breadth to find what they like, enough depth to actually develop skills.
Tier 2 of the contingency plan cuts the second elective at White Hill.[2] In practical terms, that means a typical 6th, 7th, or 8th grader who currently takes both a music or art elective and a STEM or world-language elective would be reduced to one elective. The kid who plays cello in orchestra and takes Spanish? Picks one. The kid in Studio Art who’s also been in Engineering Design for two years? Picks one.
In concrete terms: a class your kid currently takes disappears from their schedule the August after Measure H fails.
Tier 1 is already in motion — and it’s at White Hill
It’s worth being explicit about this because it’s already happening:
Tier 1 of the contingency plan ($170,000 in cuts to teacher and staff stipends and additional hours, at White Hill specifically) is in motion for FY 2026-27 regardless of how Measure H goes.[2] The district told MCOE in December 2025 that this was the floor of what it could commit to without parcel-tax certainty.
What that practically means:
- A range of stipended after-school responsibilities (clubs, sports-related coordination, additional teaching hours) get pulled back at White Hill for the 2026-27 school year.
- This is a real but bounded reduction in the additional time staff put into the building beyond their core teaching load. No layoffs, no curriculum cuts.
- It hits before Measure H is even decided, as a consequence of the prior Measure E failure in May 2025 and the resulting budget trajectory.
Tier 1 already means a slightly thinner White Hill in 2026-27, and Tier 2 is what protects White Hill from becoming meaningfully thinner in 2027-28.
What’s at White Hill right now
A few things to ground the discussion:
- Enrollment: approximately 628 students in grades 6–8 (Ed-Data, 2023-24).
- Co-Principals: Mary-Clare Mullin and John Baker.
- GreatSchools rating: 9/10. PublicSchoolReview ranks White Hill in the top 20% of California middle schools for combined math and reading. CAASPP scores: 75% proficient or better in ELA (top 10% of CA), 57% in math (top 20%), 60% in science (top 10%).
- Athletics: middle-school competition in basketball, soccer, cross-country, volleyball, and others.
- Music ensembles: orchestra, band, and chorus producing students selected for regional honor groups.
- Adjacent to Marinda Drive: Ross Valley Charter (K–5) sits at 102 Marinda Drive, in the Prop 39 facilities allocation within the White Hill complex.
- Counselors: White Hill has a counseling team that supports social-emotional learning across the 6–8 cohort. Tier 3 of the contingency plan cuts two school counselors if Measure H fails twice.[2]
What Measure H specifically funds at White Hill
Measure H is a qualified special tax — restricted to attracting and retaining qualified teachers, maintaining STEM/reading/writing programs, and keeping class sizes manageable. It explicitly prohibits spending on administrator salaries.[3]
Translated to a 6–8 campus the size of White Hill:
- Classroom teacher compensation. White Hill has more than 30 full-time teachers; their salaries are the single largest piece of what the parcel tax funds.[4]
- The electives program — the second elective specifically, but also the staffing depth that lets every student take any elective at all. Cutting parcel-tax revenue is what forces the elective reduction in Tier 2.
- Athletics, music ensembles, and electives staffing beyond the contracted PE day — White Hill’s robust extracurricular life depends on stipended hours that Tier 1 already trims.
- Counselors. The two counselor positions Tier 3 would cut are the kind of social-emotional support that middle schoolers genuinely need at a 628-student campus.
What happens to White Hill if Measure H fails
The three scenarios, in increasing severity:
- Tier 1 (already in motion regardless): $170K in stipend cuts at White Hill in FY 2026-27. No layoffs. Real but bounded reduction.[2]
- Tier 2 (Measure H fails June): $1.04M district-wide, including the second-elective cut at White Hill, plus elementary PE, the SPED and ELD coordinators, and one instructional coach. White Hill feels the elective cut directly; every student’s schedule changes in August 2027.
- Tier 3 (Measure H fails June and November): $3.1M district-wide for FY 2028-29 including closure of two of four elementary schools and grade-level reconfiguration of the remaining schools, plus two White Hill counselors and intervention programs. White Hill’s enrollment composition would also shift as displaced elementary cohorts fold into the matriculation pipeline.[2]
The Tier 3 reconfiguration also intersects with the Prop 39 facilities obligations to Ross Valley Charter — any meaningful reconfiguration of the White Hill complex would require working through the legal framework that has shaped RVSD’s relationship with RVC since 2016.[1] That’s a complication the district doesn’t want to manage in the middle of a fiscal emergency, and shouldn’t have to.
What Yes on Measure H would do for White Hill
The opposite picture, concretely:
- Two electives stay for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Your cellist who takes Spanish keeps both.
- Music and art programs hold their current scope. Honor-ensemble students keep being identified.
- Counseling stays at full strength.
- Class-size management for the 6th-grade transition (when 200+ fifth graders matriculate from four different elementaries) keeps working.
- Teacher compensation has room to recover across the 10-year term of the levy, after this year’s no-raise contract for RVSD teachers.[4]
We’ve made the broader budget case for Yes in our main case-for-Yes page: RVSD ranks 959th of 995 California districts on per-pupil state funding,[5] and even at $1,282 the proposed parcel tax would still be the lowest among Marin K-8 districts.[6] The White Hill–specific point is just this: every RVSD kid spends three years at White Hill, and Measure H is what keeps the program scope your kid signed up for.
Where we land
Every RVSD elementary student matriculates to White Hill for grades 6–8. Tier 1 already trims stipended hours at the campus; Tier 2 cuts the second elective from a typical 6th, 7th, or 8th grader’s schedule; Tier 3 cuts two counselors at a 628-student campus. A Yes vote on Measure H is what keeps the program scope White Hill families signed up for.
For these reasons, we recommend voting Yes on Measure H on June 2.
How to vote
Election Day is Tuesday, June 2, 2026. Marin County mails ballots to every registered voter in early May. You can:
- Return your ballot by mail (postmarked by June 2)
- Drop it in any Marin County drop box (closest to White Hill is at Fairfax Town Hall on Bolinas Road)
- Vote in person at the Fairfax polling location
Full deadlines and drop-box locations are at the Marin County Elections Department. Homeowners 65+ are exempt from the parcel tax — the exemption form is on the RVSD site, and existing exemptees do not need to reapply.