Charter schools a key issue in county Board of Education race

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

Santa Clara County Board of Education member Grace Mah is receiving financial support from charter schools in her race for re-election against Los Altos school board member Jessica Speiser.

Mah, 63, of Palo Alto, has received donations totaling $35,000 from three Sacramento-based fundraising groups: Charter Public Schools PAC ($10,000), Champions for Education PAC ($15,000) and Santa Clara Charter Advocates for Great Public Schools ($10,000).

Two billionaires — Netflix founder Reed Hastings and Walmart heir Jim Walton — are funding the Charter Public Schools PAC, according to its website.
Speiser, 49, of Los Altos, is relying on individual donations from prominent Democrats in northern Santa Clara County, campaign finance forms show.

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo ($500), Mountain View council members Margaret Abe-Koga ($250), Emily Ann Ramos ($100) and Lucas Ramirez ($100), Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg ($250) and school board members Bryan Johnson ($250), Laura Blakely ($250), Devon Conley ($100), Catherine Vonnegut ($500) and Thida Cornes ($250) donated to Speiser’s campaign.

Mah’s colleague on the county board, Tara Sreekrishnan of Cupertino, also donated $500 to Speiser, campaign finance forms show.

Speiser, a retired lawyer, gave her campaign $18,000 in April to bring her total fundraising to $38,651 in the first six months of the year, campaign finance forms show.

Mah has loaned her campaign $32,200 and hasn’t reported any individual donations, campaign finance forms show.

Mah also received $227,927 from the Charter Public Schools PAC before the 2020 election, when she defeated former Palo Alto school board member Melissa Baten Caswell.

Baten Caswell raised $149,594 and lost with 48,947 votes to Mah’s 53,033.

Mah is known for bringing about the Mandarin immersion program at Ohlone Elementary School in Palo Alto.

She was appointed to the county board in 2007 and has been elected four times since.

Mah voted on Aug. 26 to renew Bullis Charter School for five years — a vote that Speiser’s Los Altos School District pushed back on because Bullis has a lower rate of students who are low-income, special needs and English learners.

Mah said in an interview last month that families are drawn to Bullis because the local district doesn’t have special offerings like Mandarin language taught at Bullis starting in kindergarten.

“LASD, for good or bad, their game plan is that all students get the same thing at all schools,” said Mah, who recently switched her registration from Republican to no party preference.

Mah said she wants to stay on the county board partly because board member Joseph Di Salvo is retiring after 16 years, and three board members have no prior school board experience.

“I have some institutional memory and experience that I think is extremely valuable for the board right now,” she said.

Speiser was elected to the Los Altos School District in 2016, chairing a parcel tax campaign at the same time. Nobody ran against her in 2020.

Speiser has been president of the Santa Clara County School Boards Association and a delegate for the California Democratic Party.

Speiser, who is giving up her seat in Los Altos, said she is running for the county board to expand the safety net for students who are low-income, medically fragile, in juvenile hall or at alternative schools.

“The fuel of my fire is making a difference for those students,” Speiser said in an interview. “It’s not necessarily because I want to run against Grace Mah. I just think it’s time for that change, and I should be that change.”