Although the virtual meeting was advertised as a “community input session,” per Superintendent Dr. Don Austin’s Jan. 26 Superintendent’s Update, many questions in the Zoom chat — where participants were directed to ask their questions — remained unanswered.

Instead, toward the end of the meeting, which ended 15 minutes earlier than scheduled, community members could fill out a form with any remaining questions. When a similar form was sent out last December, however, parent of PAUSD alumni Lori Meyers emphasized the difficulty of giving specific feedback, as the substance of the course’s units and lesson plans wasn’t included.

“The community in general, and myself included, found it really difficult to understand exactly what we were giving feedback on, because it was something like, ‘What is your feedback on the section titled “Identity?”’” Meyers said. “We were like, ‘We don’t have any information’ — (the form) didn’t give us any real content to delve into.”

In a follow-up conversation with The Oracle, Lopez said that responses to questions asked on the form would be posted to the district’s ethnic studies webpage in the near future, but wasn’t able to provide a firm date.

The Jan. 30 meeting was one of many instances in which community members raised questions about PAUSD’s new ethnic studies class. Passed in October 2021, California’s A.B. 101 mandates an ethnic studies-course graduation requirement for all public and charter high schools. The requirement aims to acknowledge the state’s diverse population in its curriculum, and follows research co-authored by Stanford Graduate School of Education professor Thomas Dee in 2021 demonstrating ethnic studies’ positive impact on attendance and graduation rates for ninth-grade students.

In PAUSD, freshmen will first take a semesterlong ethnic studies course — which aims to “examine California as a microcosm of the United States and focus on themes of social justice, social responsibility, and social change by increasing student agency” — before covering world history in the second semesters of ninth and 10th grade.

While ethnic studies has long been a contentious matter, tensions have risen since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, with educators, parents and students attempting to reconcile their ideas for the content and structure and content of the course.

Path to a state mandate

On Nov. 6, 1968, the Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front, a coalition of ethnic student organizations, went on strike at San Francisco State University (then San Francisco State College) to advocate for more diversity in the admissions process and for the creation of a school of ethnic studies. After more than four months of striking, San Francisco State established the nation’s first College of Ethnic Studies, which began operating in fall 1969.

Though it remains one of the only institutions of its kind in the U.S., ethnic studies courses have since become more common at other colleges and universities.

Five years prior to A.B. 101, former California Gov. Jerry Brown signed A.B. 2016 into law on Sept. 13, 2016, mandating the Instructional Quality Commission to develop an ethnic studies model curriculum for high schools. When the commission completed their first draft, however, it faced backlash for being ideologically left-leaning and excluding certain topics, such as antisemitism. On Aug. 12, 2019, California Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond announced that the Instructional Quality Commission would be submitting a new draft to the Board for approval.

“Ethnic studies can be an important tool to improve school climate and increase our understanding of one another,” she wrote in a press release. “A model curriculum should be accurate, free of bias, appropriate for all learners in our diverse state, and align with Governor Newsom’s vision of a California for all. The current draft model curriculum falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned.”

After three additional drafts, on March 18, 2021, the California Board of Education adopted a 688-page model curriculum. Although the course’s primary focus remained on African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans and Native Americans — the groups most college ethnic studies courses center around — the model curriculum expanded to include lessons on other ethnic groups in the U.S. Furthermore, the final draft included guidance to teachers on establishing trust when discussing complex topics and presenting balanced coverage of issues.

Current concerns

Some on the commission, however, were dissatisfied with the final model curriculum. A September 2023 letter from the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council expressed concerns over the weaponization of “guardrails,” which preclude ethnic studies from promoting any discrimination, bias or bigotry.

The first draft of the state model curriculum included lesson outlines on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and studies of figures such as U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, whom some have criticized for anti-Israel comments. The final version does not include these lessons, instead focusing on the history and contributions of Arab American communities, as well as common stereotypes that Arab Americans encounter.

The 2023 letter contended that restricting certain material from the curriculum mirrors “conservative efforts in states such as Texas and Florida to suppress hard truths about racism and colonialism” and that “California teachers should be able to deliver lessons on important concepts such as settler colonialism, apartheid, and resistance without having to fear censorship or legal action by the state.”

Those with similar views joined to create the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, which first convened in April 2020. The organization has their own model curriculum that aims to have students look through the “intersectional lenses of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, ability, language, immigrant status, and class” and “analyze indigeneity, white supremacy, oppression, privilege, and decolonization, and work toward empowering themselves as anti-racist leaders who engage in social justice activism.”

Many, including former California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig, have urged schools to reject the “liberated” curriculum in favor of the state’s model, noting the dangers of using group identity as the primary lens to examine history, society, culture and politics. On the other hand, proponents of the “liberated” curriculum argue that de-emphasizing systems of power and oppression detracts from ethnic studies’ original purpose, leading to surface-level, non-critical explorations of culture and race.

According to Lopez, PAUSD has partnered with the University of California, Berkeley’s High School Ethnic Studies Initiative — part of its History-Social Science Project — starting this year. Some community members have expressed concerns about this partnership, as the group lists the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum as a teaching tool and also worked with the Oakland Unified School District, in which a faction of the Oakland Education Association participated in an unauthorized pro-Palestinian “teach-in.”

In a Jan. 19 email obtained by The Oracle through the California Public Records Act, Austin clarified to the PAUSD Board of Education that the Oakland teachers union failed to follow standard processes and taught lessons that weren’t connected to the Berkeley consultants.

“During the (curriculum development) process we will consult with a lot of people,” he wrote. “That should be what is expected. There will be many efforts to silence voices, starting with who we even speak with. I am asking that we continue to share the process and timelines and that our board helps people who reach out to understand that we have identified input opportunities.”

In PAUSD, Gunn Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick said that though some lesson outlines from the state’s model curriculum may be used, most would be generated by Gunn and Paly teachers. He also noted in an email that it would be “extremely unlikely that (the district) would use anything specific from the Liberated Ethnic Studies group.”

Community feedback

In order to prepare for the 2025-26 course rollout — which was pushed back one year to allow for further course development — PAUSD formed its Ethnic Studies Committee last school year, comprising Lopez, Patrick, Paly Social Studies Instructional Lead Mary Sano, and other Gunn and Paly teachers.

The committee is currently refining the course’s five core units: Identity; Race and Ethnicity; History and Migration; Language, Culture, Education, and Learning; and Action and Civic Engagement. It is also soliciting feedback from students and community members. At the Jan. 30 meeting, the committee announced a new Unit 0: “Why Ethnic Studies?,” and Lopez noted the possibility of one section of ethnic studies running at each high school next school year to allow for additional fine-tuning before the final rollout.

Thus far, alongside the two community meetings, Paly and Gunn held information and student-feedback sessions during PRIME on Oct. 11 and Oct. 18, respectively.

At the school-board level, community members have advocated for an ethnic studies course encompassing more ethnic groups — mirroring the activism that led to the state’s sprawling model curriculum.

During Open Forum on Nov. 14, 2023, 17 Middle Eastern and North African community members spoke about their experiences with Islamophobia and advocated for MENA inclusion in ethnic studies. According to Paly senior Mariam Tayebi, who is the MENA Club co-president, the group felt compelled to speak after facing bullying and discrimination following the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

“We decided that it’s really important for us to show the district and show whoever else watches (the Board meetings) that there are kids here and we are struggling and we want to be represented,” she said.

At the next meeting, on Dec. 12, eight Jewish parents and students — including PAUSD parent Linor Levav — detailed personal experiences of antisemitism and asked for Jewish voices to be included in the ethnic studies curriculum. Although Jewish Americans’ history is typically not covered in most college-level ethnic studies courses — they are considered white in the context of the discipline — the California model curriculum includes lessons on Jewish Americans and antisemitism.

“I want to ask you to please include Jewish Americans in our ethnic studies class,” Levav said during Open Forum. “Antisemitism has exploded across the United States and the Bay Area. It’s fueled by lies about Jews and Israel. PAUSD can and should help to correct this.”

Beyond specific ethnic-group considerations, many have advocated for transparency with the curriculum-development process.

“It’s very, very important that there is … full transparency,” Meyers said. “The more that the community and students and parents can see what’s going on in ethnic studies, the better and smoother the process is going to be, and the more likely it’s going to be that we get the kind of ethnic studies class that I think we all really want.”

While Patrick understands the community’s desire to participate and the need for PAUSD to share updates and solicit feedback, he emphasized that the lack of transparency some feel can mostly be attributed to educators’ newness to the process, not ulterior motives.

“What we’re trying to do is create a course that’s going to be best for our students,” he said. “So as people are looking at our work and bringing up their own points, I hope that they can keep that in mind that some of the comments parents make might not be in the best interests of our students as a whole.”

Along a similar vein, though PAUSD parent Uzma Minhas also values transparency and community involvement, she cautions the district from only listening to the loudest and most organized groups.

“They have to be very careful that oftentimes marginalized communities don’t speak up, so they may not be hearing from the most marginalized communities,” she said.

A realistic curriculum

Although much of the conversation surrounding ethnic studies has revolved around Jewish and MENA curricular inclusion, Patrick emphasized that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not explicitly be covered in the new course, and that it’s currently a part of the sophomore Contemporary World History class.

“The scope that the state intends for the ethnic studies curriculum is narrower than the general public … is aware of,” he said. “By the time students are there in 10th grade looking at that topic, they will have hopefully developed the skills or began to develop the skills to analyze those things on their own.”

Paly senior Alma Samet — who identifies as a Mizrahi Jew (Jewish people who are of MENA origin) — agrees with this assessment, noting how including the conflict in ethnic studies could exacerbate misrepresentation.

“I really could see it just overriding and taking up a lot more space in the curriculum than it has to, especially when there are so many different topics and communities to focus on,” she said.

Still, senior Deena Abu-Dayeh stressed the imperfections of how the Middle East is currently covered in Contemporary World History, citing her own experiences.

“The only time I’ve ever heard (about) Palestine — which is where I’m from — is when it had to do with the conflict and how we are the terrorists, and that name has been portrayed on us a lot,” she said. “That kind of gives a false image that all of us are just barbarians that have to deal with poverty.”

According to Patrick, the ethnic studies course’s final unit — Action and Civil Engagement — will include a capstone activity allowing students to have more choice in the topics that they delve into.

Looking ahead, the social studies department plans to identify potential ethnic studies teachers by this spring, so that it can spend the next school year in professional development related to the course. Although specific trainings have yet to be finalized, teachers will be focusing on developing common understandings of sociological terms that may not be as prevalent in other history classes, such as “dominant and counter narratives” and “intersectionality.”

Ultimately, despite the complex and often-controversial process, Samet maintains an emphasis on the course’s central objective.

“I think the main goals are just to create more well-rounded, respectful students who are ready to go into a world that is very diverse,” she said. “Especially in America, it’s a big old melting pot, so making sure that people maintain respect for all types of cultures and traditions and also understand a bit more of a backstory on the struggles that these communities have faced.”

The next ethnic studies community meeting will be conducted as a webinar, and the district will ask for questions in advance. More information will be provided in Dr. Austin’s weekly Superintendent Updates.

This longstanding relationship has fostered educational and cultural exchanges. Stanford professors pilot curricula in PAUSD schools, PAUSD students attend Stanford summer programs and many Stanford faculty members double as PAUSD parents.

According to Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick, however, Stanford’s influence is strongest in the realm of teacher education. Many PAUSD teachers are trained through Stanford’s 12-month, full-time Stanford Teacher Education Program.

“The program exposes them to some of the resources that Stanford has, as well as some other approaches to teaching,” Patrick said.

Gunn departments also draw on Stanford’s resources for lesson plans. Originally founded at Stanford, the Digital Inquiry Group — previously known as the Stanford History Education Group — provides supplemental lesson plans for Gunn social studies classes. YouCubed, an organization founded by Stanford’s Dr. Jo Boaler, provides the curriculum for Gunn’s Introduction to Data Science course.

According to Gunn alumna and current Stanford freshman Olivia Pham, Stanford’s and Gunn’s educational approaches share striking similarities beyond curricula.

“There’s a strong emphasis on not just understanding concepts, but being able to apply them in slightly different ways you’ve never seen before,” she said. “While friends here have told me that math here at Stanford is much more rigorous than at their a pretty smooth transition between Gunn and Stanford.”

In that way, Stanford influences Palo Alto’s culture of — and value for — educational excellence. Gunn alumnus and current Stanford freshman Jules Lustig noted that Gunn and Stanford have the same “grind culture”: an atmosphere of constant drive, strict discipline and high standards.

During Gunn alumnus and current Stanford sophomore Alex Gu’s time with Gunn Math Circle, he took part in the Stanford Math Tournament, a nationwide high-school competition hosted by the Stanford University Math Organization. Student involvement extends beyond STEM, however: Current Gunn sophomore Emerson Chang took part in the Stanford Humanities Circle and found herself interested by the discussion-based, grade-free nature of the program.

“Stanford provides Gunn students with many educational opportunities outside of high school, which allows them to explore their personal interests in unique ways,” Chang said.

Gunn alumnus and current Stanford freshman Jude Hardan hopes for further cooperation between Gunn and Stanford.

“Having such a prestigious academic institution close to Gunn and not using it for collaborations to enhance the educational experience is not the best use of resources for students,” he said.

Lustig echoed this sentiment, adding that he’d like to see a Stanford-Gunn course centered around eliminating students’ fear of failure and instead inculcating love for a subject or field.

“It would be really cool to facilitate some sort of program out of class,” Lustig said. “Something that involves getting away from the numerical grade that is not a measure of intelligence and not a measure of how successful you are in any way.”

Ethnic studies at Gunn will be a sociology course examining the societal landscape of different ethnicities’ experiences and the historical context behind current events.

The current plan for the course, officially adopted during the Oct. 9 staff-development day, replaces the first semester of ninth-grade world history with the ethnic studies course. The content of the removed semester will be distributed across two semesters of ninth- and tenth-grade world history. District staff are preparing the curriculum to be presented to the school board this December.

The timeline — which was also recommended by the Ethnic Studies Committee, comprising social studies teachers at Gunn and Paly — allows the district to implement the course as soon as possible while still granting time to collect student and community input, according to Board Vice President Jesse Ladomirak. “The only thing worse than not talking about stuff is talking about stuff in a way that does more damage than being silent,” she said. “I would like to take the time and make sure we do it safely.”

With a date set, a student focus group led by Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick met during PRIME on Oct. 18 to discuss what the skills, takeaways and content of the ethnic studies course should look like. The meeting served as a precursor to larger community meetings that will happen during the rest of the school year.

In preparation for the changes, world history teacher Christopher Johnson plans to start condensing his curriculum and incorporating more skill-based learning next school year. “Part of the push is to focus more on various skills such as sourcing, recognizing bias and opinion, and observational skills, but maybe one of the losses (is that) the content won’t be quite as rich as (before),” Johnson said.

The course’s placement aligns with that of many other districts in the state and is backed by a 2021 peer-reviewed Stanford University

Patrick, who taught the ethnic studies elective last year, said the new, required class will be altered to better suit freshman needs. It will center around four new Essential Learning Outcomes — historical thinking, writing, conversing and citizenship — in five units: identity, race and ethnicity, history and migration, language culture and learning, and action and civic engagement.

Gunn alumna Madison Yue, who took the elective last year and is a former features editor for The Oracle, emphasized the importance of engaging with diverse narratives early on. “I wish I had the option to take ethnic studies as a freshman,” she said. “I think it is important for freshmen to take this class because (they) can learn about these different narratives and perspectives at an earlier point in high school (to) help unify our community.”

The course, however, does not come without controversy: Community members have noted that a single semester might not be not enough time for both content breadth and nuance, while others have concerns that the new class could provide an excuse to exclude material on underrepresented groups from other social studies classes.

These concerns were brought up during the Oct. 18 focus group. Some countered these arguments by saying that ethnic studies would equip students with the mindset and skills necessary to further explore diverse narratives in their future social studies classes. Patrick also noted that the course will focus on local demographics, with opportunities for students to learn about specific ethnic topics that interest them, such as through the final unit’s action project.

At the Sept. 12 school-board meeting, PAUSD Superintendent Don Austin addressed other concerns. Instead of adopting the state’s model curriculum, he said that PAUSD is creating its own curriculum, which will be built around topics brought up by the Ethnic Studies Committee and in future community focus groups. “The controversy is around some elements of the model curriculum,” he said. “We’re not adopting that, so we need to be super clear about that.”

The current plan is for district staff to present a curriculum to the school board this December. “If we go with this timeline, we might have some revision time, both from students who are in that class and as we continue to look at it,” Austin said.

According to Patrick, the ethnic studies elective will remain on the course catalog so that Gunn students graduating before 2029 can still take it.

Yue also highlighted other opportunities to get involved for students who are interested in the ethnic studies material. “I would take advantage of the resources at Gunn — for example, getting involved in affinity groups or the student equity committee,” she said. “Even if you’re not of a specific culture, check out those different cultural clubs and participate in the cultural events that SEC hosts.”

The Ethnic Studies course, listed on the catalog for over a decade, failed to generate enough student enrollment to run until last year. Ethnic Studies teacher Jeff Patrick believes his class is for students who want a broader look at the world than what is offered in traditional social studies courses. “What’s unique about it is the focus on the history of different ethnicities,” Patrick said. “The United States History and World History classes mention them, but it’s the sole focus of this class, allowing us to delve into it a little more deeply.” Students who choose to take Ethnic Studies will not only learn about the past of historically underrepresented groups, but become equipped for their future as well. “We’re all living in a society, and the better we can understand how it works, the better we are going to thrive,” Patrick said. “American society is very multicultural and diverse, and it’s useful for students to know the background of historically underrepresented or oppressed groups.” For students worrying about rigid curricula, the Ethnic Studies course can be a liberating experience. “There’s a lot more latitude to shape things towards what students are interested in,” Patrick said. “There are opportunities for more projects and students to investigate topics they choose. There isn’t a set list of projects and activities in the same way as an economics class or contemporary world history class.” Above all, this class goes beyond the historical facts and dives deeper into cultural impacts. “The purpose of the course is to help us understand both the contributions and challenges that these various groups have faced,” he said.

The Works of Shakespeare English elective hasn’t garnered enough student enrollment in recent years to run, but English teacher Paul Dunlap is looking to change that. “You don’t have to know anything about Shakespeare,” he said. “People who think they know something always learn something, and people who think they’re afraid of it surprise themselves by how much they understand it.” Unlike other English classes where reading novels is the norm, The Works of Shakespeare covers works intended for the stage. “We integrate watching as much as possible because Shakespeare was meant to be heard and seen,” Dunlap said. “We do comedies and sonnets as well as histories and tragedies—I like showing people that his work is broader than just ‘Romeo and Juliet’ or ‘Macbeth.’”

Dunlap believes that low enrollment in the course is due to the lack of familiarity underclassmen have with him. “I’ve taught very few underclassmen in a while, so if none of them know me, they wouldn’t sign up for the class just based on my name,” he said. Dunlap also hypothesizes that a fear of Shakespeare ingrained in some students makes them apprehensive about taking such a course. “If their exposure to Shakespeare is very minimal, it might feel too daunting to sign up for a whole class about it,” he said. Dunlap encourages students to not be afraid to take risks with course selections. “I would recommend students take a chance if something sounds interesting, even if they’re not sure or if it sounds like it might be challenging,” he said. “If there’s any interest at all, what a great opportunity to sign up for it.”

Positive Psychology is a course that tends to be overshadowed by other seemingly similar courses such as Psychology and AP Psychology. Nevertheless, Positive Psychology teacher Tarn Wilson advocates for its distinction and continuation as a class. “Positive psychology is a subset of psychology,” Wilson said. “Psychology covers the history of and major historical trends in psychology. It also focuses on mental disorders of various kinds, whereas positive psychology focuses on the science of wellness.” Wilson explained that Positive Psychology is unlike other courses in that the majority of the class is used to practice methods that reinforce what is learned. “Martin Seligman in the 1990s felt there was a gap in psychology, and that we need to study what makes people well and not just what makes people unwell,” Wilson said. “We learn about the science-backed principles that make people well, but the main part of class involves practicing them, whether that be practicing gratitude or random acts of kindness or making sure we build fun into our lives.” Especially at Gunn, Wilson believes that the study of positive psychology is essential not only for maintaining mental wellness, but overall academic achievement as well. “Gunn teaches a lot of skills in developing the mind and intellect, but we as beings have a mind-body connection,” Wilson said. A lot of us culturally in Silicon Valley are very disconnected from our bodies and from our emotions. Our physical, mental and emotional health are very connected to our academic success, but we separate them out.”

The new course, dedicated entirely to the study of African Americans, comes at a time of ongoing nationwide debate surrounding how race should be taught in classrooms. While some states such as California are seeking to expand discussions about race by implementing a new ethnic studies requirement, 36 states have introduced legislative efforts to restrict education on race, gender and American history as of Aug. 2022, according to the nonprofit organization Poets, Essayists and Novelists (PEN) America. Diversity Commissioner junior Chania Rene-Corail believes discussion about race is necessary, given recent controversies over its role in education. “Race has been impacting people for centuries now,” she said. “A lot of people have been negatively impacted by it and the concepts we associate with race—to just ignore it now would be much more harmful than talking about it. As someone who is from a minority group and has had trouble finding representation in history classes in the past, it’s extremely important to be able to know about your past and know about why people treat your community the way they do.”

Social studies teacher Arthur Kinyanjui also believes it is important to know about African American history and supports the new course. “Most of the western civilization, starting with the Industrial Revolution, was based on the backs of African Americans,” he said. “If we look at the experiences [African Americans] have gone through, the reality they face today and the perspectives of those that hold power, we can clearly see that they’re not in alignment. If you’re going to have a more equitable, just society, we need to understand what their hopes, dreams and grievances are.”

Kinyanjui also hopes the course will increase respect for all minority groups, not just for African Americans. “The more we know, the more caring and empathetic we become about those around us,” he said. “Most of the time, discrimination and other kinds of mistreatment are based on fear, and most of this fear comes from people not having enough information.”

Black Culture Club President junior Angelina Rosh hopes that the course will focus more on current issues, rather than historical perspectives. “Though we need to start learning more about African American history, specifically at our school, it’s not [only] about recognizing African American history or the struggles, but [also] recognizing how we interact with the community today,” she said. “I would really like there to be a constant focus on relevant issues and how this history has affected us now. There’s no point in learning about history if we don’t see how it’s directly affecting what we see in the world today. Not only will this make us more socially aware, but it would also help eliminate the issues we see on campus.”

However, due to concerns regarding enrollment, there is no current plan to offer AP African American Studies at Gunn. Rather, Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick encourages students who are interested in African American history to enroll in AP Human Geography or Ethnic Studies classes instead. “If students are interested in the topic, our AP Human Geography class provides some of the same analytical skills,” he said. “[Also,] our current Ethnic Studies class, which we’re running for the first time this year, would love to see more students in it. [AP Human Geography] is designed to be a more interdisciplinary class than a U.S. History or economics course, which seems to be the direction that higher education is moving toward in terms of providing students with a wide range of skills in which to tackle big problems.”

Although there has never been an abundance of staff members willing to teach SELF, there have always been enough to fill the necessary spots—until this year. Last spring, several SELF mentors were reluctant to return to the program, mostly due to a realization that Paly’s teacher advisors—analogous, at least superficially, to SELF mentors—were being compensated at higher rates than the SELF mentors at Gunn.

According to SELF Mentor and former SELF Coordinator Tara Firenzi, the pandemic created difficulties in maintaining communication with Paly around their respective programs. “We had been coordinating quite a bit with Paly in terms of knowing what they were doing, and then 2020 broke down that communication in a lot of ways,” she said. “Then, [after the pandemic,] we found out that there was a very different [compensation] model in place at Paly.”

SELF Coordinator Kathryn Catalano noted that Gunn’s compensation rate reflected an estimated 71 hours annually for SELF mentor duties—mentors were not being paid for teaching during the SELF period itself, but rather for other duties they were expected to perform, such as attending meetings about the program. However, as the SELF coordinators and Gunn administration found out in May, the rates of compensation across both campuses were vastly different: During the 2021–2022 school year, Paly teacher advisors for grades 9 and 10 were paid $10,000 a year, while advisors for grades 11 and 12 were compensated at one-fifth of their salary. These advisors taught four periods, but were paid as if they taught five, with their Advisory period constituting this “fifth” class. At the same time, all Gunn SELF mentors were paid $4,500 a year.

The disparities in compensation between the two campuses originate, in part, from the differences between their respective programs. Paly students participate in Advisory, an older program more strongly connected to academic counseling than social-emotional learning. On the other hand, Gunn’s SELF program—launched in 2017—was created specifically to address California’s social-emotional learning standards and to place an emphasis on student wellness, according to Assistant Principal Courtney Carlomagno, who helped set up the program. “California was adopting [social emotional learning] standards, and we had to show we had a place where we were meeting these standards,” she said. “SELF was [also] a response to the fact that we needed more community and we needed to make sure that all students had access to a trusted adult.”

Given that the two programs were created to fulfill separate needs, staff members’ roles for SELF and Advisory differ. Teacher advisors at Paly for example, write letters of recommendation for their students and advise them throughout the college admissions process. In essence, they perform many of the tasks that guidance counselors usually perform, and this explains part of the funding gap. Because teacher advisors function similarly to counselors, Paly has fewer guidance counselors than Gunn and is thus able to compensate its advisors at a higher rate. Catalano found that this disparity played into some SELF mentors’ decisions about returning for the 2022–2023 school year. “As soon as we knew about [the discrepancy], we immediately went to our mentors,” she said. “It became clear very quickly that the majority of our mentors were not comfortable continuing to meet every week at the $4,500 yearly compensation.”

Given the paucity of people available to staff the program, administrators and SELF coordinators at Gunn made the decision to transition to a biweekly model, with mentors doubling up on SELF cohorts in order to cover the shortage. With a lower number of mentors, it was possible for each to be compensated at twice the original rate, reducing the pay gap between the two campuses and alleviating the mentor shortage—in fact, after adopting this model, there were more than enough SELF mentors willing to continue with the program, according to Firenzi. “[We didn’t] have enough teachers who agreed to be compensated at half or less of the rate of Paly, so we increased our rate,” she said. “[Then] we had enough teachers.”

According to Firenzi, mentors who double up on cohorts alternate, seeing their freshman or sophomore cohort one week and their junior or senior cohort the next. Teachers with only one SELF cohort see that cohort every other week, and teach the newly added Study Hall for at least part of the year in order to fulfill their obligation of teaching for five-sevenths of instructional minutes. They will be compensated at the same rate as the previous year. All teachers not acting as SELF mentors have a Study Hall period as well. This is in contrast to last year, when teachers who weren’t SELF mentors were not teaching at all during the time designated for SELF, and were thus actually receiving more than their allotted two-sevenths prep period time for the PRIME and SELF periods. (Last year, SELF mentors taught full periods of SELF and PRIME, voluntarily putting themselves above the five-sevenths required teaching time). Teachers and SELF mentors working part-time have had their duties adjusted proportionally.

This schedule change is likely to have a vast array of consequences, both positive and negative. Catalano noted that having a SELF program with a smaller pool of mentors could be beneficial. “This new setup means that we have a smaller group of mentors who are really, really dedicated to the program, which is exciting,” she said.

However, there are some potential drawbacks to the change—most notably, the fact that students will be meeting with their mentors half as often in a program which works to establish student relationships with a trusted adult. Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick was among the teachers voicing this concern. “What we’re going to lose is the time to develop the individual relationships with students, which is unfortunate,” he said.

Some students, including SELF Advisory Board member senior Elliot Grant, considered the change to be a good move. “Especially as a senior, I think it’s smart that we only do [SELF] every two weeks now because I think it helps students become more productive,” he said.

According to Principal Wendy Stratton, throughout the process, feedback will be solicited from students regarding the changes to the program. There is also a district ad hoc committee composed of teachers, students, school administrators, members of the Board of Education and other members of the community.

Ultimately, Catalano hopes to maintain a robust SELF program. “At the end of the day, I want our program to be one that serves the needs of our students and balances the need for social and emotional wellness [while] also helping them find some balance in their coursework and in their school life,” she said.

However, recent trends have shown a reversal to this growth. Out of the state’s 58 counties, 53 experienced a decline in student populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, with public school enrollment falling 2% since the 2019–2020 school year. According to the California Department of Education, Bay Area public schools have lost 6.5% of their students, with Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) seeing a 10.5% decrease in students since 2019.

Impacts on Enrollment

Pandemic-era learning has led some students and their families to reconsider public schools. Junior Ella Holsinger, a student at the Castilleja School, attended Gunn for her freshman year before enrolling in private school as a sophomore. “The distance learning that Gunn did [at the end of] my freshman year was pretty sparse,” she said. “We didn’t have to go on Zoom calls and the asynchronous work didn’t benefit me at all. Ultimately, my family and I made the decision to go [to Castilleja] together.”

According to Assistant Principal Courtney Carlomagno, public schools faced more barriers than private schools when it came to adapting throughout the pandemic. “Public schools are larger than most private schools so sheer size can cause protocols to be larger to manage,” she said.

Parents and students began to notice the different transition protocols offered by private and public schools, including their hybrid options and dates for full in-person instruction. “I went back to [in-person school] in Nov. 2020,” Holsinger said. “[At Castilleja,] we ended up going to a model where it was one week of online and one week of in-person which was amazing.” In contrast, PAUSD high school students were not offered a consistent in-person learning option until March 2021, in which they could choose to come on campus for two days of the week.

Other students such as sophomore Zefan Feng chose to move to private schools for reasons outside of pandemic restrictions. “The student-teacher ratio was quite important,” he said. “There are around 40 kids per grade [at the Pinewood School] so we have more individual attention from the teachers. I think that it’s easier to get better grades if you have more attention.”

Although private schools are a factor in declining public school enrollment, they themselves have also experienced dropping student populations, indicating that they aren’t the primary cause for the exodus from public education.

Another main contributor has been California’s overall decreasing population. According to the California Department of Finance, the state lost 117,600 people in 2021, with the San Francisco Bay Area population declining by 50,400 people. Although the region only makes up 19.4% of California’s population, it accounts for 42.9% of the decline statewide.

Many, including English teacher Diane Ichikawa, point to the area’s comparatively high costs of living and pandemic trends as the reason why people are leaving in record numbers. “There are a precious number of people who can actually afford [to live] someplace like Palo Alto, let alone any of the coastal regions in California,” she said. “The ability for people to work remotely made it so that people could live in places like Montana while still making the same kind of money that they would [make] if they were in California.”

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, most families have relocated out of the state for housing, jobs or family-related reasons. Junior Riku Sakai moved to Gilbert—a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona—during the summer of 2020. “[We moved] mostly because of my dad’s job and also our financial situation,” he said.

However, some, such as sophomore Julie Chen, have used moving as an opportunity to take advantage of alternative academic pathways. “We decided to move to Bellevue, Washington partly because of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program [offered there],” she said. The IB program is a rigorous, two year course of study that culminates in a student receiving an internationally recognized diploma. PAUSD currently does not offer an IB program at either of its high schools, and there are no plans to implement one in the near future.

Another trend amplified by the pandemic is homeschooling. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 5.4% of families reported choosing this option in the spring of 2020, compared to 11.1% in the fall of 2021.

Sophomore Justin Lee decided to try homeschooling instead of attending Greene Middle School for his eighth grade year. “My mom wasn’t working at the time so homeschool was eventually an option that we started to consider,” he said. “As an eighth grader, I was able to love learning again. If I had known at all how homeschool [was before], I don’t think I’d have ever chosen to go to public school just because I like it so much.”

Even before fully transitioning, Lee’s family had some experience with learning at home. “Almost every summer, my family would do a version of homeschooling, and I would follow a curriculum developed by the homeschool community,” he said.

Funding Consequences

The California state government establishes a funding goal—known as the Local Control Funding Formula—for how much money a district should receive per student enrolled. If the area’s property taxes are insufficient to provide the necessary funding, the state comes in to cover the shortfall. While most schools are funded through a combination of state and local revenue, around 8% of districts—including PAUSD—are considered basic aid. Basic aid districts are areas where property tax revenues exceed the funding threshold set by the government, meaning that they receive minimal state funding.

Because property taxes do not fluctuate based on how many students are enrolled, declining student populations have had few financial impacts on districts like PAUSD. However, those relying on the state for revenue have had to make some difficult choices, since their funding is determined by enrollment. According to district records, Alum Rock Union School District in San Jose decided to merge two middle schools after losing over 1,000 students since the 2019–2020 school year while West Contra Costa Unified School District currently faces a $24 million deficit and is looking to cut staff and student programs.

At Gunn, the decrease in students has still led to noticeable impacts, according to Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick. “For the last couple of years, there’s been a steady decline of students,” he said. “The interesting thing is that it’s not just a smaller incoming freshman class, each of the grade levels are losing students. Next year’s 12th grade class is smaller than this year’s 11th grade class, meaning that not all of the students are coming back.”

Even though PAUSD doesn’t face the same dire consequences as other districts, Ichikawa points to initiatives that could help retain students. “PAUSD doesn’t even have to shrink in terms of its number of teachers and the resources that we have,” she said. “We have millions that are locked away in our reserves and we’re not going to go poor over everything that’s happening. We can use this as an opportunity to have smaller class sizes and more arrays of programs to find a really good fit for our changing population.”