BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Palo Alto Unified School District should learn from its defeated parcel tax by having a more active campaign and concrete responses to opposition, a former school board member said yesterday.
“People here want to support education. So if they know that money is going to affect students and teachers in the classroom, they will support it,” said Mandy Lowell, who was on the board from 2000 to 2007.
Learning from the past
The last time a parcel tax failed in Palo Alto was November 2004, when a $521 tax fell less than 1% short of two-thirds approval. Supporters regrouped and passed a $465 tax with 73% support in June 2005.
Lowell said the campaign took a different approach the second time around in 2005.
“We tried to answer many more of the questions instead of just saying,’We’re a good school district and we need more money,'” Lowell said. “We looked at reductions that would have to be made – Are you going to increase class sizes? Are you going to be able to maintain certain programs? – so people could see where the money was going.”
Voters raised and renewed the parcel tax in 2010, 2015 and 2020.
But this year’s campaign for an $800 tax faced unprecedented opposition from former school board members Todd Collins and Ken Dauber. They said the district is in a strong financial position, with declining enrollment and over $100 million in reserves.
Measure B would’ve raised $14.6 million annually for the district and has 60.8% support.
Supporters not giving up
Parent Sarah Cornwell, who organized the “yes” campaign, said volunteers will keep fighting until the funding is secured.
“Our commitment to protecting our schools doesn’t waver,” she said in an email on Tuesday night.
Lowell said the “yes” campaign could put out more lawn signs, solicit more donations, host more community meetings and send out more voting reminders.
“They can make a much more compelling case,” she said. “It’s word of mouth by parents saying to other people in the community, ‘This is really important for us to maintain these programs.'”
To push back on Collins and Dauber, Lowell said not all expenses go down with enrollment. Schools still want drama programs and student newspapers, even with fewer students.
Reserves can be depleted, educators have higher expenses and the district has more students with higher needs than a decade ago, Lowell said.
I see a lot more special interest spending. Why did the Board approve over 7 million dollars to install night lighting and natural gas powered heating into outdoor swimming pools? The students don’t swim at night or during the colder months. Why even keep pools at middle schools since it is not in State frameworks and some schools don’t even offer swimming. Dig a little and you will find that one former board member has direct ties with PASA. So, I totally support our schools but I don’t support funding non school activities with tax money earmarked for schools or staff. Same goes with renting out at below market value our public school space. Keep wasting money on special interests and people will not want to give it to you.
Thank you Mandy for being an involved and hands on board member. I always enjoyed speaking with you. You made teacher insights seem valuable and classroom efforts appreciated. In other words, you showed empathy and respect, attributes woefully lacking in the last decade or so. It would be great if you mentored new board members if you are not doing so already.
Enrollment in 2016 was around 12,200 students, and in the current school year (2025-2026) enrollment has dropped to 10,120. The number of FTE employees has stayed the same in the school district, roughly 1,380.
The board of education should explain to the public, why a 17% drop in enrollment, why has class sizes not seen a proportional drop, why employee count has not dropped.
A lot of parents have concerns about things like mandatory ethnic studies that the board seems to favor. What benefit would you get for paying for that? Combine that with a disdain for higher math. It’s like the board wants to brainwash kids and then complain when everyone’s unemployed.
I love your alias!
Thanks, there’s big money in pronouns these days.
Why don’t these supporters use their energy and go after our state representatives adn our governor and force the state to give school districts more money, instead of the state funding more and more social programs and funding for illegals (oops, sorry, undocumented future Democratic party voters). This is merely a con to put the blame on Prop. 13. Here’s how it works. The state only gives the schools so much money and blames Prop. 13. They tell the schools if they want more money, float these parcel tax measures. Use nice glossy brochures with students doing science projects, etc. The state legislature controls the purse strings…the money is there already!
Well said!
Student enrollment has decreased; PAUSD should have reduced costs b c it doesn’t need as many staff. PAUSD is supposed to educate students, not be an employment program.