Palo Alto School Board Candidates Interviews 2024
All six of the candidates for the Palo Alto school board in 2024 were invited to these interviews.
The five active candidates responded and were provided with a complete copy of the questions in advance. These questions do focus mostly on special education but I believe they will give you a good sense of the way each of the candidates think and will approach whatever issues they face on the job.
I hope the videos and transcripts help you make your decisions. 3 of the 6 candidates will be elected for a four-year term starting in December of 2024.
Questions to candidates below.
(Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the questions that I WISHED I’d asked….)
The Questions
If you are talking to your grandkids 10 or 25 years from now long after you’ve served your two terms if you want on the school board what accomplishment would you share with them?
There are both general education students and special education students who are not going to college at PAUSD what are your thoughts on the current state of our vocational and post-secondary programs now and where do you think they should move?
Deciding to run for the school board is a big decision was there a specific reason or incident or experience or a straw that broke the camel’s back that inspired you to run now this year?
Inclusion for students with disabilities has been steadily improving nationally but according to the 21 March report by the school district, inclusion has been steadily declining over the past 5 years here. What is your read on the situation for inclusion in Palo Alto and what if anything needs to be done?
At the very last board meeting in June in the information only slide packages there was a report that was not discussed showing that there was a substantial number of eighth grade students failing math what are your thoughts on this matter and what do you think about how the district and board should handle issues like this in the future?
What are your thoughts on suspending students in elementary and middle school some other school districts have banned suspension for children this young as they are not really of an age where they can make rational decisions the children probably consider being out of school a reward and the data shows that there’s substantial dis proportionality in the use of these suspensions?
You’ve been running for several months now and listening to a lot of people without naming names or revealing something specific or personal what have you learned that has surprised you the most?
There seems to be a lot of tension between the teachers and the school board and the District administration the negotiations with the teachers union appeared quite contentious and at least in board meetings there were a number of cases where the district and teachers did not seem to be communicating how do you read the situation and what if anything would you do either about the relationship between the board and the teachers or the district and the teachers
From the perspective of a number of parents of students with disabilities that’s 1,58 out of the 10,318 total students in the district in the Years 2022 2023 the district has been restructuring the program without meaningful prior parental consultation and reducing Services uh there’s been a reduction of Elementary Learning Center sites from 7 to 5 in 2023 and the restructuring of the preschool program to a Learning Center uh from a previously inclusive program in 2024 and dropping a math program at JLS in 2023 what is your view of the situation and what if anything do you intend to do about it?
How do you see the participation by the members of the public in School board meetings as meetings held in public where the public is principally the audience for a meeting of the board or as a public meeting where the public is a critical part of the proceedings both to raise new topics and explore agenda items?
Lots of parents are going to come to you for advice what would you advise a parent who is concerned about getting their child assessed for special education services and B how would you advise a parent whose child has been determined to be eligible for special education services but is concerned about using them?
The number of students has been steadily decreasing for the past several years now in Palo Alto Unified School District at the rate of around 200 students per year and is projected to continue to do so according to the District budget estimates the number of students with disabilities is also decreasing at a similar though slightly lower rate how do you perceive this situation and what do you intend to do about it if you are elected?
Nationally and in Palo Alto there is a lot of discrimination against disabled people and children what do you think the school district should do to change that culture ?
One of the biggest impacts you are likely to have as a school board member is on Direct constituent Services addressing the problems that families have that they haven’t been able to address through other means how do you plan to be available to parents for this service and navigate between individual issues and larger policy problems?
While Palo Alto is very highly ranked for general education in California the performance gap between our special education students and general education students is larger virtually across the board and this is true for other marginalized groups as well a particular note is that 43.5% of suspensions are of students with disabilities even though they are just 10.3% of our student population what is your goal to close the performance Gap and other areas of disproportionality and how quickly do you want the district to work to close it?
Four years from today at the end of your first term you are up for reelection what is one concrete substantial accomplishment that you will be telling us about in this forum in four years?
Other Election Resources
Palo Alto Online
Palo Alto Daily Post
League of Women Voters and Palo Alto Council of PTAs (PTAC) Forums
School Board Candidate Forum 2024, Educational Equity & Access
Unasked Questions
Questions I failed to ask and questions we should be asking. There is still time to get answers…
Background: This is an unusually critical school board election for Palo Alto. Not just because it will shape the board with 3 new members, but we are gearing up to re-authorize our parcel taxes and re-launch our bonds. So, this isn’t just a matter of governance, but we will be shaping the funding future for our kid’s education and our schools.
Question 1: Over the past 2 years, the board, Dr. Austin, and the rest of the district leadership have clearly prioritized the early literacy and dyslexia programs through reports every month or so to the board and the SWIFT Plan and equity program through reports from every school in the district over the course of the year as well as multiple district-level reports. What are your thoughts on these programs, that the district prioritized them, and how they went about getting things done?
Question 2: Assume board and district attention is a zero-sum game, would you have taken on any different issues over the past 2 years? If so, what?
Question 3: Are you satisfied with or do you think we should change our school district administration, specifically, our Superintendent?
At best, changing leadership will cost our community at least 2 years of stasis, potentially turmoil. Perhaps much longer. Searching for a new leader takes time (ignoring any contract issues), finding a good candidate who wants to come to this school district is hard (would you want to come to a school district that is: very expensive, has very demanding parents and board, and where you are more likely to go downhill rather than do better?). And, even with all that, there is no guarantee of success (the overall “churn” rate for Palo Alto Superintendents has been pretty high).
Question 4: What are you going to do to prepare the district and Palo Alto community as a whole to support a new round of parcel taxes and bond measures (in light of your answer to Question 1)?
If the school district is in the midst of change, struggling internally, it is going to be much harder to sell a parcel tax and bond measure to the school community much less Palo Alto voters as a whole.
Question 5: How are you going to keep other programs progressing or start new initiatives during this period of change (also in light of Questions 1 and 2)?
Marginalized groups are always the ones who are going to suffer most during these kind of transitions. Boards, leaders, and staff only have so much bandwidth. If you are busy trying to hire a new superintendent, you are not going to be starting a new math program or improve inclusion. The board will have less time for new work, senior staff will be either addressing challenges because of a vacancy or updating their resumes, and it all rolls downhill.
Do you want to continue the conversation about special education and disability in Palo Alto and Santa Clara County?
