SMUHSD Board replaced by Hillsborough moms
The San Mateo Union High School District’s Board of Trustees was completely replaced by community members who ran for positions in an emergency election last week. The new Board is immediately implementing new policies and changing Board processes after watching the way that the coronavirus pandemic was dealt with.
“The decision for credit/no credit for this semester came after a five hour meeting that I can only describe as an absolute circus,” said Burlingame parent Karen Wilson, the new Board President. “The meeting was just ridiculously bogged down by democratic nonsense and wanting to allow everyone to share their opinions, even ones that were super irrelevant. I was appalled by how inefficient it was.”
Wilson said before announcing her candidacy she had already been involved in Board processes by fundraising for the campaigns of her favorite Board members and threatening to pull program funding on the frequent occasion that she disagreed with administrative processes.
“I just wanted to take it a step further and really get involved on a public front,” Wilson said.
Wilson is one of five moms who have now taken a role on the Board, all of whom collectively decided to run last month. Their campaigning plans were discussed in FaceBook groups open to Aragon parents, and any moms who had logged over 1,000 hours of volunteer hours with the PTA at their child’s school were encouraged to run for a position.
“I think my most important qualification is that I care that students perform well,” said new Board secretary Karyn Jones. “And I want my daughter to be top in her class and get into a good college. Isn’t that the only thing that matters?”
The new Board has begun outlining some of their most important goals for the year, including creating more opportunities for high-achieving students, the top 10% of each class, increasing cash flow into SMUHSD schools and placing a specific emphasis on academic extracurriculars. In a recent press release, the Board also stated that they are planning on dividing all schools into “houses,” based on very specific academic and financial requirements.
“In order to prioritize the needs of our future engineers and programmers, there will be a house that is exclusively open to students who take a minimum of 3 AP classes, have a GPA of 4.0 or above and whose family has made a donation of at least $7,500 to their school’s Excellence Fund,” the release read. “Regardless of the situation with coronavirus, these students will be guaranteed letter grades and given priority access to SAT and ACT tests and prep in order to gain entrance into top universities! The next three houses will be organized on a sliding scale of academic ability, zip code, annual donations and/or attendance.”
The Board has also indicated that they wish to limit crowd input during meetings in order to make them go faster, and will be taking complaints or suggestions from the public via forums on social media app Nextdoor. Any community member who wishes to speak during the meeting will need to write a 1,000 word application and submit it to the Board for approval two weeks before the meeting date. If approved, they will have 5 seconds to speak before they are kicked off of the Zoom call.
A preliminary budget has already been proposed and is undergoing revisions by the new Trustees. It includes significant cuts to support programs, teachers’ salaries and arts programs. Aragon will be starting construction on a second engineering lab and are currently purchasing more construction supplies and programming software for robotics.
“I believe the children are our future,” Jones said. “But only if they end up graduating with a STEM degree from a UC (only Berkeley or UCLA) or an Ivy League university (not Cornell) once they graduate.”
When asked about college and career opportunities for students who might not be admitted to an elite school, Jones did not have any suggestions.
“It’s not my fault that my husband’s consulting firm spent the past 20 years teaching companies how to ship middle class jobs overseas. If people had saved more from George W. Bush’s tax cuts, they could have afforded experiential non-GMO preschool, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Jones and the other new board members are adamant that most students return to school in the fall so that Aragon does not suffer any decrease in test scores or education quality, but have made it clear that some students will be allowed the option of staying home.
“We’ve set up home offices for my kids and have a tutor on call 24/7 to make sure they stay ahead academically,” Jones said. “Remote learning might have been a blessing in disguise because they’re really learning so much better at home.”
