Candidate for
Board Member; Belmont-Redwood Shores School District

Advancement of a rigorous and integrated academic curriculum:

The popularity of Belmont/Redwood Shores as a community is, in part, a testament to the quality of its schools. But my sense of the prevailing attitude about the schools is one of "acceptable goodness". We can, and should do better. We need to make the curriculum diverse enough to accommodate students of all abilities, yet rigorous enough so that each students knows that there's something more for them to strive for.

When I was a substitute teacher, I had an opportunity to teach a middle school science class where the project was for teams of students to build a container that would protect an egg when dropped from a certain height. I think these kinds of open ended, project-based activity are fantastic. At the same time, I thought that the assignment could have benefited by taking advantage of and incorporating real life demands and processes common in our nearby Silicon Valley businesses. For examples, the assignment could have touched on:

1. Design thinking on how to ideate.

2. Mathematical modeling prior to prototyping.

3. How to prototype, and learn by "failing quickly"

4. How to be respectful and effective on a team and in a meeting.

5. How to communicate in a small group or to a bigger audience

These activities exercise and develop individual and team skills important for any future endeavors, not just those in the technical fields.

I understand that it's not the role of a board member to design curriculum, but I feel that I can bring analytical rigor and a comprehensive vision to judge any curriculum that may be contemplated by the district staff.

Strategic management of enrollment growth:

Since 2007, when my daughter first attended Kindergarten, the enrollment in the district has grown by >50% (from ~2500 students to nearly 4000 students today). This is a testament to the Silicon Valley economy, and the desirability of Belmont as a community, helped in no small part, by the quality of its schools. Through my volunteering activities, I have gained some understanding of the uncertainties that is CA public school funding, demographic estimates and competing community priorities. I have seen how these uncertainties affected the ways that the district have tried to cope with this challenge. I would like to be respectful of the hard work that previous boards have done to grapple this this issue, by not assuming that I have all the answers. However, it appears likely that some combination of the following will have to be considered:

Increasing capacity at the elementary school level, possibly by adding on to Cipriani Elementary where enrollment demand is highest. Adding capacity at other elementary schools is also possible, but we'd want to look carefully at the number of students that are best served by each solution and the potential impact on things such as traffic to the city.

Adding and distributing middle school capacity through creation of K-8 campuses east of Hwy 101. This expansion is already happening at Nesbit and contemplated at Sandpiper Elementary. Expansion and distribution of middle school capacity is not only necessary to accommodate the bolus of current elementary school aged students who will be moving through the system, but will at least mitigate some of the traffic concerns compared to if Ralston were to remain the only middle school in the district.

Working closely with local high schools including the potential Design Tech Charter School at Oracle to understand and ensure that our students have somewhere to go after they leave the district in 8th grade. Close cooperation with local high schools will also allow our district to align our curriculum to ensure appropriate preparation for high school and beyond.

In speaking with the Superintendent, he highlighted that one of the important role of the board is to provide district staff with community input and guidance on issues that may have more than one solution. Enrollment growth is clearly one of these issue. The district is fortunate that the community has recently passed bond measures that provides some funds to address this challenge. The question is how does the community balance and reach consensus? I believe that I can be useful to the board on this question through my ability to listen and distill competing opinions, my effectiveness on a team, and my analytical comfort with complexity.

Good governance and oversight:

There are a set of basic activities that the board must execute efficiently. Examples of these diverse activities include: staff contract negotiation, creation and oversight of budgets, partnering with community, faculty development, etc. If it doesn't handle these core activities efficiently, it won't have the time and flexibility to address any other priorities. I feel that I can increase the effectiveness of the board through my natural inclinations toward thoughtful, practical and rational decision making.