Ken Dauber, candidate for PAUSD School Board
Why are you running for PAUSD school board?
What skills and experience do you bring to the role of school board member?
What are the biggest strengths of PAUSD?
What are the biggest challenges of PAUSD?
How can you implement change in a district with a strong culture of school autonomy?
Is PAUSD ready for the Common Core and new California test?
How should PAUSD move forward from the OCR resolution?
Should PAUSD open new schools to ease overcrowding?
What should PAUSD do with Cubberley?
What is one thing you want Palo Alto voters to know about you?
Why are you running for PAUSD School Board?
I am running for school board because we all share a vision in Palo Alto of schools where every child is challenged to meet his or her full potential and every child is supported in that goal. We also have a vision of a school community that is innovative, results oriented and meets the needs of every child. But there are parts of that vision that we haven’t gotten done. I will point to several areas where I am committed to making forward progress after the election.
The first is supporting the social emotional well being of kids in our schools, particularly middle and high school students. We can all agree our kids are facing too much stress, homework loads that for many of our kids are too big, and test and project schedules that don’t leave enough time to get the work done. These are specific areas where we can do better. I have spent a lot of time over the past several years making good progress on homework guidelines, improving guidance counseling in high schools and other issues.
The second is reducing overcrowding in our elementary schools by reopening closed schools. We closed a lot of schools in 70s and 80s as our population was decreasing. Now our population is increasing. Student population has gone up by 35% over the last 20 years but we have only reopened one elementary school, Barron Park. We’ve talked about it many times, but we should get it done. Another school will also allow more kids to walk and bike to school.
Another area is foreign language instruction in our schools. Many parents want all elementary schools to provide world language instruction, not just our immersion choice programs. After the election, I am committed to universal foreign language instruction for elementary students and to beefing up foreign language instruction in middle school, including Chinese language.
Finally we need to better use data and metrics to see where we are falling short between what we are offering and what kids need.
Considering the three domains of board responsibility- administrative oversight, policy setting and judicial oversight- what are the experiences and skills you bring to be an effective school board member in these areas?
The role of the school board is to connect to the community to its school district, and to communicate the desires of parents and community members about our schools. The board is not about professional expertise in education. We have a very competent district staff for that. It’s more important for the board to make sure the community’s goals for the organization are clearly expressed and that we measure and report our results to the community.
I bring unique and valuable skills to the role of PAUSD school board member. The first skill I have is around using data and metrics. I was pleased to hear Dr. McGee emphasize need for metrics in running a results-oriented school district.
I have deep experience in using educational data to understand the performance of school districts across California and across the country. I have worked with Education West and the US Department of Education to examined data regarding equity in achievement, access to a college prep curriculum, funding differences between schools, and other areas.
I also am committed to ensuring that the district is in compliance with federal and state laws regulating how we take care of our students. I have been a strong and consistent voice for recognizing that our legal obligations are based on values we share for protecting students. When issues are raised, the board needs first to ensure that we are in compliance with the law and second to examine where we have fallen short and can do things better. Compliance is an opportunity to continuously improve.
My vision for PAUSD is very closely aligned with the community’s vision and the district’s vision. That’s not unusual because there is a broadly shared vision of our schools in Palo Alto. Where I can make a contribution is in my commitment to taking that vision and actually achieving it.
For example, we all agree we should have less crowded schools and we should re-open schools, but no decisions have been made. I’m committed to working with the board to get it done. We all are committed to the value of Cubberley as a community asset but we haven’t engaged with the City to figure out what to do with that property. We all are committed to the social and emotional well being of our students, but I have worked with parents and community members to improve social and emotional support programs and will continue to do that as a board member.
I don’t think we have any dissent about the vision, but we want a school board that is proactive about getting those things done.
How do you implement change in a district with a strong culture of school autonomy?
We need to balance our culture of site-based empowerment and control with the understanding, that, as Dr. McGee says, we are a school community and a unified school district. Dr. McGee recognizes the importance of assuring community members that no matter what school you attend across the district, you’ll get the benefits of the good things the district offers. We need to have a commitment to excellent and equal services for students across the district.
We should encourage innovation. Our teachers are creative and innovative and we should make sure they are connected to the latest research. We should assess what works and promulgate it across the district. We should also find out what isn’t working as well so we can bring up the level of performance of all schools across the district. This is the value of being a unified school district.
Data, research, and facts can take the emotion and politics out of issues. For example, in the PAUSD homework committee on which I served, there was an enormous range of opinions about homework among teachers, parents and administrators. Dr. Young focused the discussion on the research and data, and that allowed us to build consensus around a policy that is a great guide for homework practice in the district.
Finally it’s important to make a commitment to getting things done. There are opportunity costs to not making decisions, such as larger schools and crumbing infrastructure. We need to push past the inertia and make these decisions.
Just as there is consensus in the community around these issues, there will be consensus on the school board. You will see a lot of agreement on the board on these issues. It’s a matter of putting our shared values into action.
What are the biggest strengths of PAUSD?
We are a district that has enormous strengths. We have dedicated and professional teachers. We have engaged parents. We have a lot of resources relative to state of California, including the highest per pupil expenditures and highest teacher salaries of any large unified school district in the state. We are well positioned to do well, with circumstances that other districts would love to have.
We are located in heart of Silicon Valley, which is the heart of innovation for our region, in the nation and the world. We have a world-class institution of higher education across the street. It’s hard to imagine a better launching pad for our district.
What are the biggest challenges of PAUSD?
Our challenge is taking that potential and translating it into real action. There are decisions that have been deferred that we need to get done.
We should be more innovative than we are. We need to look at our bureaucracy and help teachers who are doing interesting work move forward. We also need to build bridges. One former board member described El Camino to me as the “widest street in America” because of the lack of connection between Stanford and our school district. There is a huge opportunity with Stanford to connect our teaching and curriculum to best practices informed by educational experts and leaders.
We have an enormous wealth of knowledge about 21st century learning in Silicon Valley, and many parents who are leaders in innovation. We could do more to bring these resources – including people, ideas, and opportunities — into the schools. The school board is well positioned to serve as a bridge to these community resources.
For example, computer science for girls is an issue I experience every day at google because we don’t have enough women engineers. We have teachers in our district who are connected to national efforts to make computer science education more accessible to girls. Tech companies have a vested interest in supporting these efforts and giving teachers the resources they need, whether its funding, projects, mentors, etc. PAUSD should be making use of these opportunities. There is close alignment between what we want as a tech community and what the school and our larger community wants in terms of preparing kids to be part of the economy we are building here in Silicon Valley.
Is Palo Alto ready for the Common Core and new California test?
Palo Alto is very well positioned, because the emphasis in Common Core standards on critical thinking is something that teachers in PAUSD have been doing for a long time. There is excitement about Common Core among PAUSD teachers because it gives a push in the direction teachers are already going. However, there are some areas where issues are not yet clear to teachers – for example, how to prepare kids to be successful on the new assessments.
As school board members, our main role will be to listen to teachers about the support teachers need, and to ensure that we provide resources such as professional development and computing resources for test administration to make the implementation of Common Core as smooth as possible. But we need to remember that Common Core is fundamentally a positive development because it means we are making a commitment to preparing all kids in Palo Alto and across the county for the world that they will be living in.
How should PAUSD move forward from the OCR resolution?
I have been a consistent voice for cooperation with the federal government. I opposed the school board’s resolution criticizing the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and believe it was the wrong direction. The right response would have been to say that we may have had shortcomings, but we will address them and make our district better. To pick a fight with the federal government over civil rights enforcement doesn’t reflect well what’s best for students, and is a huge distraction from our central mission of education.
What should PAUSD do with Cubberley?
We need to engage in a joint planning process with the City so we can collectively decide how to serve the district’s needs for a possible new high school or middle school and the City’s desire for a community center. There are creative ideas that could make this possible, such as preserving the playing fields for city residents and schools. After all, we are all citizens of both the city and school district. This means that the school district has temper its desire for maximum flexibility so we can move forward in a way that recognizes the value of Cubberley for the school district and the community.
If you read the report from the Cubberly advisory committee, it’s clear that one obstacle to making progress has been the district’s reluctance to engage in joint planning with the City. We need to see Cubberley primarily as an educational and community asset, and not primarily as a financial asset. That’s why the voters entrusted PAUSD and the City with this resource. Both entities are going to have to make some compromises in order to get to a successful conclusion.
Should PAUSD open new schools to ease overcrowding?
It’s similar to our situation with closed schools: These properties are first and foremost educational assets, not just financial assets. We are in a fortunate position now because we have a budget surplus due to higher property tax revenues, and we don’t have to make decisions based on financial considerations like lease payments alone. The cost of opening a school is minimal compared to its value for the community and for students. We always have the option of closing schools if we need to in the future. We should not sell these properties again as that was clearly a mistake in the past. We need to balance worry about the future with concrete loss of opportunity right now, so long as we make sure we are protected against future changes.
What is one final thing you want Palo Alto voters to know about you?
I have been working collaboratively with lots of people in PAUSD over the last several years to get concrete changes done for kids in Palo Alto, such as homework, counseling and test and project scheduling. These issues are not simple but they matter for the lives of the children in our schools. I have been committed to that as a parent and community member, and will continue as a school board member.
Visit Ken Dauber’s website to learn more.
