A correction appears at the end of this column.
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
With all of the turmoil in the Palo Alto school district, the school board shouldn’t make things worse by rushing to hire the next superintendent before the next school board is elected.
The board would be wise to take a breath and move through the process thoughtfully — rather than at breakneck speed.
The last several months have been tumultuous in the district.
• The community was divided by a surprise move in January 2025 to add ethnic studies to the high school curriculum, a class that Chinese and Jewish families felt was discriminatory.
When new board member Rowena Chiu said publicly she felt bullied by other “woke” school board members for questioning the class, all hell broke loose — and an attempt led by former board member Ken Dauber to pressure her off the board failed.
• Then, in a reversal of the employee-employer relationship, a council of teachers and administrators rejected a decision by the school board to offer multivariable calculus at Palo Alto High School. The move was a stunner since the school board usually makes decisions, not the employees.
• In early February, it came out that the union representing teachers wanted a 28% pay raise (the figure includes benefits and other pay), and the non-teacher union wanted a 47% boost. No decision on pay has been made.
• In mid-February, the district agreed to pay $3.25 million to PE teacher Peter Colombo, who claimed he was falsely accused of raping a student more than 20 years ago. He accused the district, led by Superintendent Don Austin, of botching the investigation into his case.
• Days after the settlement, Austin said he was stepping down. The board agreed to pay him $596,802 to quit.
• Three days later, the school board announced it had selected Austin’s chief of staff, Trent Bahadursingh, to serve as acting superintendent.
A chip off the Austin block
Bahadursingh, like Austin, was a defendant in Colombo’s suit. Bahadursingh once worked in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, where Austin was once superintendent.
And Bahadursingh is an employee of Austin’s side gig, a leadership coaching business called SimpleWins.
Now the school board is abbreviating the process for finding Austin’s replacement, which is a mistake.
Normally, a district would ask for “requests for proposals” or RFPs from search firms. But to speed things up, the board wants Bahadursingh to ask a couple of search firms to vie for the job of finding Austin’s replacement.
Conflict of interest
I don’t trust these search firms because they have a built-in conflict of interest — they represent both job seekers and employers. Imagine you’re a superintendent in another city, and your board is on the verge of giving you the boot. But the public doesn’t hear that you’re about to get fired because it’s all handled in closed sessions. You hire one of these search firms to find you a new job and they send your application to Palo Alto. When applying in Palo Alto, you’re able to keep your job problems secret because they were all discussed in closed session. So Palo Alto unknowingly gets a bad apple.
If you slow down the process, the board can visit the applicant’s current district to see what people say about him or her.
A worse case: The board will get lazy and give up on finding the best candidate. They’ll just give the job to Bahadursingh. After all, he’s chief of staff (whatever that means), so he must know a lot about the district.
But an employee of the district’s front office, Victoria Maya, claims in a lawsuit that Bahadursingh bullied her, and it stopped her from coming to work. She claims he called her all sort of vulgar names.
A lot of witnesses
Now I know that anybody can file a lawsuit and claim anything they want. So these allegations could be completely false. But from the looks of the complaint, there’s going to be many witnesses in the case who would be called to testify about whether Bahadursingh said such things. If they all heard Bahadursingh berating her, it will be more than just a case of “she said/he said.”
You’ve got to wonder why the district would elevate Bahadursingh to the top job, albeit on a provisional basis, when he has this cloud over his head. Isn’t there anyone else in the vast and highly-paid administrative ranks of the PAUSD able to run things on a temporary basis?
This is an example of why the board should slow down and make thoughtful decisions. Let the new school board, which will have two new members, hire the next superintendent.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
Correction: An earlier version of this opinion piece was incorrect in saying board President Shounak Dharap was involved in soliciting any proposals from search firms. The board has asked its employees to solicit proposals from search firms. The column has been corrected to reflect that fact.
Dharap said he hasn’t been given authority to filter the proposals when they arrive. He said all proposals that come to the district will go to the full board.
He said the board will have a special meeting at some point in the next two weeks when the search firms will present their proposals, one by one, to the board.
To say the last three months in the district have been tumultuous is an understatement. The wheels have come off the bus. No wonder Austin was shown the door. The board’s “woke” agenda has exploded in their faces. The Colombo lawsuit is just the beginning.
Dave is about the only journalist left on the Peninsula with common sense.
Yes, Dave offers evidenced-based comments with a thoughtful recommendation.
Rushing a decision often leads to a short-term solution, followed by a need to make the dame decision again.
He’s a straight shooter. He calls a spade a spade.
The board’s agenda, at least in my time, was union busting, “aligned curriculum”, social emotional well being, and political correctness du jour. Not so sure that is the original meaning of “woke”. Anyone asking questions or raising concerns was targeted for the type of harassment doled out by Trent Bahadursingh. Not sure that is “woke” either. More like fake window dressing “woke”, not the real deal.
Take your time and get it right PAUSD. Stick to educating and try to steer clear of politics.
Honestly, just about anyone is better than Austin or Bahadursingh, and I’m sure there are some good candidates out there if due diligence is performed.
Sounds like Don and Trent were only the tip of the iceberg. PAUSD and Trent absolutely deserve due process and their day in court but this seems like only the beginning for PAUSD. Where there is heavy smoke, there IS an actual fire. How many more PAUSD employees will finally have the courage to come forward to share their horrible experiences about management or possibly file new lawsuits now? Will the investigation and court case against Trent potentially uncover more evidence or possible allegations that died in the darkness over the last few years? Anyone know who the Director of Maintenance and Operations for PAUSD is? Did anyone bother to read his resume or even do a simple background check before hiring him? Have there been any complaints filed against him since being in PAUSD or ongoing employee issues? Who promoted him within PAUSD? Anyone?…..Anyone? Bueller?….Bueller?….Thank you Dave Price for your journalism and this spot on article!
Now of course the Weekly has been silent for all these stories because they are in the back pockets of the Daubers and PAUSD. I don’t know what the relationship is built on but Weekly is for sure a rag newspaper with this type of subjective reporting.
For sure Dave price and his crew are the only objective news outlet in Palo Alto and now throughout the peninsula.
Hopefully Dave and Cartwright will keep peeling back the onion on all the corruption that took place under Austin and Trent all these years, and the bullying. I’m really looking forward to Dave sitting someday with Colombo and getting all the facts of that case and what went on because 3.25 million for a school district to pay a single plaintiff is huge! I’m looking forward to that investigative article.
I’m unaware of the Weekly Dauber relationship. Could you elaborate?
Add pushing out veteran teachers, no matter how good they were, to save a dime as part of the “Woke” agenda. A new teacher costs half as much and tends to be more “compliant”.
Meanwhile, hefty raises were doled out to the bumbling 25 Churchill inner-circle because loyalty and silence had to be purchased. Not a “Woke” tactic either. Just good ole fashioned corruption.
Wonder if that #1 Niche ranking still holds. It should since students, parents, and staff do all the real heavy lifting.
[Post removed — Terms of Use violation. Please use the comments section for opinions. The lawsuit to which you referred appears in today’s Daily Post (March 12, page 6).]
“The board has asked its employees to solicit proposals from search firms.”
The employees currently in place to solicit proposals… Are also going to be the same people Bahadursingh trusts to do whatever he demands. That’s been Trent doing Don’s work – but the model remains. Anyone left in HR has sold out for years, how can you trust them?
This is a fine stew we are being served. Thanks Dave for stating it plainly.
YES TO HOLDING OFF ON HIRING. Let Trent do the hard work and try to save his rep (as if it’s possible). It’s time he do some real work and show the world he ain’t qualified for any of this.
There are very few people in DO who should be considered, and I wouldn’t wish it on them.
Stop rushing us. This shell game it Boo sheet, it’s over! Simple wins. Simple is the least creative word.
Oh you do not have to dig too far or be a veteran investigator to dig up the truth. Most community members with a stake in the schools want and hope that the Board members they selected represent the schools as a whole. These last few years, in my personal opinion, have not shown that. Maybe Covid is too blame? A few interesting board approvals slid thru the cracks during the Covid challenge. Post Covid Board recommendations for contract renewal of Superintendent may or may not be related. In my opinion, if Covid never happened, Don and Trent would never had made it this far. The cracks would of been caught and sealed.
You are talking about basically coming in and cleaning house. Anyone remotely connected to Austin’s time needs to be gone and just start over. Great news is Dharap is done in 12/26 and the very nice Segal is not running again. Come 1/27 PAUSD has a chance to start fresh, and the board and district needs to stay clear of the Dauber’s and their agenda, that is what got PAUSD into this whole mess that is now the joke of the Bay Area. What is sad is while PAUSD Leadership is imploding the DAUBER’S have just disappeared, not a word from them or the Weekly, who was in charge of delivering their propaganda for all these years. Come on Michele, make a statement or at least give Kenny the permission to say something.
I prefer the quiet Daubers. Less damage.