Candidate for
Board Member; Sequoia Union High School District

Allen Weiner has devoted his entire professional life to public policy, education, and public service.

Allen is an accomplished and dedicated educator. As Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of the Program on International and Comparative Law at Stanford Law School, he understands what young people need to compete in the global economy. He knows how vital educational excellence is for our children's success, whether they go to work or college after high school.

Allen also has deep experience in the policy world. Before joining the faculty at Stanford Law School, he served for 11 years as a lawyer in the State Department, in Washington DC and at the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands. He understands how to analyze complex policy and management challenges, how to develop workable solutions, and how to build a consensus among key constituencies to implement those solutions. He is also an experienced negotiator and currently co-directs Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Allen will bring those skills to the Sequoia Union High School District.

As the product of urban public schools in his hometown of Denver, Colorado, Allen is deeply committed to public education. He knows the schools in our District and their issues well. He is the father of three children: Evan, who graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School this year and is now a freshman at Harvard University; Josh, who is currently a sophomore at M-A; and Katie, who will be a freshman there next year. For the past three years, Allen has served as an English Language Development tutor at the school, spending a morning on campus each week.

Allen was himself a high school teacher before attending law school in New York State.

If elected to the Sequoia Union High School District Board, Allen's goals include:

• addressing the achievement gap among our students so that we successfully educate ALL of our children, without compromising programs that foster excellence;
• recruiting, training, and retaining the best teachers;
• promoting college preparedness;
• for those students for whom college is not the right choice, developing a career and technical education curriculum that provides students the skills they need in today's economy.

Allen serves on the Board of Trustees of the Palo Alto University and the Board of Directors of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. He is also the drummer in the Menlo Park rock 'n' roll band "The Members," which has performed many fundraising benefit events for the schools in our community, including parties for the M-A Foundation for the Future (September 2010 and May 2009), parties for the Menlo Park Atherton Educational Foundation (September 2010 and February 2010), and a performance at the Pioneer Inn in Woodside benefiting the M-A music program (April 2011).

Allen graduated from Harvard University (magna cum laude) and Stanford Law School (Order of the Coif and with Distinction). He is married to Mary Dent, General Counsel of the Silicon Valley Bank.