Publication Date: Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Board candidates come forward
Board candidates come forward
(June 08, 2005) Two seats open on school board
by Alexandria Rocha
With two seats open on the Palo Alto school board this fall, two community members have so far confirmed their candidacy while two others remain on the fence.
Barbara Mitchell and Dana Tom, two active parents in the school district, both said Monday they plan to run. Dave Charleson and Barbara Spreng, also parents whose names have surfaced as possible contestants, said they will not make a decision for a few more weeks.
The candidates will vie for the two open seats of board President John Barton and member Cathy Kroymann, whose four-year terms expire Nov. 30.
Although the Board of Education election is five months away, those interested in running have been eagerly waiting to announce their candidacy until after Tuesday's parcel tax election. Since all four are parents, their attention has been focused on supporting Measure A for the last three months.
Now that the campaign is officially over, Charleson and Spreng said they need more time to regroup and discuss possible candidateship with their spouses and families.
"It's not a decision that one makes lightly," said Spreng, who spent the last year as president of the Palo Alto Council of PTAs. Another parent, Melissa Caswell, will take over that post this upcoming school year.
Mitchell and Tom, however, are already shifting gears. Mitchell, who ran four years ago and lost as a write-in candidate, is busy forming her campaign team. Tom is studying the issues. Both, however, have not solidified the topics they plan to focus on during their campaigns, but they agreed to talk to the Weekly on an introductory basis.
One factor already stands out: The two Mitchell and Tom have long histories of involvement with the school district. They've volunteered in classrooms, served as PTA presidents, and held seats on school site councils and district strategic planning committees. So have Spreng and Charleson, the incoming PTA president for Hoover Elementary School.
It's sure to be a contest backed by experience and knowledge of specific district issues.
Mitchell graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1970. While her oldest son is now a sophomore in college, her three younger children still attend public schools here. As a side note, Mitchell met her husband, Fred, at their 10-year Paly reunion.
She calls her last 15 years as a district volunteer an apprenticeship.
Tom's family, which includes two school-aged children, moved to Palo Alto seven years ago for "the excellent education." Three years ago, Tom went part-time at Electronic Arts in Redwood Shores so he could spend more time volunteering at the schools. He can be found in the back of almost every school board meeting.
When asked what issues they hope to tackle if elected, however, their initial answers end the similarities. While Mitchell cites district financial accountability and transparency as a major concern, Tom says he wants to expand communication between the board and PTAs, as well as look into the district's class-size reduction program.
Mitchell said she draws "quite a bit" of her experience and perspective from the 10 years she spent at the Xerox Corporation in sales and management. She has also served on the Palo Alto Foundation for Education and Partners in Education boards, the governing bodies for two school fundraising organizations, and much of her focus over the last few years has been helping to secure funds for classroom resources.
During those efforts, she immersed herself in the district's finance policies.
"It's clear to me that the community wants more info on how we're using our funds; how we're making those decisions," she said. "In the 15 years, I've learned there has to be a continuous process of evaluating priorities and the effectiveness of funding."
For Tom, he sees the individual PTA councils as an untapped resource for communication between the board and district parents.
"The PTAs are in the perfect position to frame information for families," he said Monday. "It's a great role for the PTA to promote communication. The PTA is the nexus between parents and teachers. They're in the position to tie together those groups."
Tom served on Duveneck Elementary School's site council in 2002-'03 and he spearheaded an initiative to produce pamphlets for parents about affective ways to communicate with teachers. He said similar materials were given to teachers, and other schools are in the process of adopting the models.
Tom also hopes to re-evaluate the district's class size reduction program. He said classes for juniors and seniors have been skipped over for small sizes, which could be detrimental for some students' learning.
"That's a targeted area where class size reduction would have a huge impact," he said, adding that he would like to "see what sources of funding there are" for small sizes in 11th- and 12th-grades.
Candidates can pull nomination papers from July 18 through August 12.
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