A proposal to end an alternative education program for 11th-graders in the Tamalpais Union High School District has caused an uproar among students, alumni, parents and teachers, who have organized online opposition that has drawn more than several thousand backers.

Created in the early 1990s, the Team Program serves 24 juniors each year in the Tamalpais Union High School District. It is based at Tamiscal High School, the alternative school in Larkspur, but the students spend much of their time on wilderness trips, internships and community service projects.

The program has become popular, drawing 80 to 100 applicants each year, according to the district.

With a longstanding teacher set to retire, district administrators will recommend that the school board close the program at its meeting on Feb 6. At issue is not the quality of the program, but the distribution of scarce resources to a small group of students, Superintendent Laurie Kimbrel said in an interview Tuesday.

"The question is not, is this a high quality program?" Kimbrel said. "It is. The question is, given that we're a public school (district), are we serving as many students as best that we can?"

Supporters say the program has been a godsend and, if anything, it should be expanded to serve more students. Within hours after news of the possible closure spread last Friday, they mobilized a campaign to save Team.

As of Tuesday, an online petition in support of the

"Because the model is successful, does that mean you should close it?" said Mary Newman of San Geronimo, whose daughter is in the program this year. "Why should you do away with something that is working?"

Newman said her daughter, Emma, has been transformed by the program, which has taken her on wilderness trips and placed her at the Bay Area Discovery Museum and the neurology clinic at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center.

"She is taking it all on," Newman said. "It has changed her life. She is not the shy kid who entered as a junior or a freshman into the school scene."

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Proposed cancellation of Marin high school program causes uproar