BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Mountain View Whisman School District is at a turning point, with Superintendent Ayinde Rudolph on leave, state auditors investigating potential fraud and millions of dollars at stake in negotiations with the city.
Three of five seats are up for grabs in November, with no incumbents seeking re-election and a fourth seat opening if board member Devon Conley gets elected to Mountain View City Council.
Seven candidates are in the race, including a parent who went viral for challenging the district’s mask mandate and a retired biology professor who wrote a paper about “transgenderism as a social contagion.” A middle school teacher, a substitute teacher, a software engineer and a couple of parent volunteers are also in the race.
The winners will oversee nine elementary schools and two middle schools serving around 4,500 students.
DiFazio aims to repair
Charles DiFazio, 40, is a software engineer at Google. He has daughters at Crittenden Middle School, Vargas Elementary School and preschool.
DiFazio said he got involved with the district at math and science nights, walkathon fundraisers and “walk audits” of the district’s safe routes to school.
DiFazio said he’s excited about the district’s efforts to screen kids for literacy before third grade and offer them targeted interventions if needed.
DiFazio said he disagreed with the district changing the middle school bell schedule from eight periods to seven periods, and then rolling the proposal back after parents were surprised.
“It is really important that, when considering potentially disruptive or controversial changes, the board takes the time in public to hear feedback, go through study sessions, and thoroughly deliberate before making them,” DiFazio said in a questionnaire.
DiFazio is hopeful that a new board can repair the district’s relationship with the city of Mountain View.
The district is trying to get a larger share of revenue from the Shoreline tax area, where property taxes were diverted to the city in 1977 so the city could close an old landfill, build new roads and manage the natural environment east of Highway 101.
“With the incoming board being made of a majority of new members, it’s a great opportunity to start again after the communications breakdown of the past,” DiFazio said.
Davis-Hung taught all grades
Erin Davis-Hung, 46, is a substitute teacher and a parent volunteer in the district for 12 years.
She has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Oakland University in Michigan.
Davis-Hung signed up to be a substitute teacher in 2015, when she heard about a need for more qualified teachers.
She said she’s taught every grade in the district and spends most of her time at the middle schools specializing in math and science.
“I’ve seen how the kids have changed from before Covid to now, and all of the ways that the district has sort of changed too,” Davis-Hung said at a candidate forum.
Davis-Hung said she wants to offer more social and emotional learning, or “S.E.L.,” to teach middle school students how to manage their relationships and understand their emotions.
“That is definitely needed,” she said.
Dormishan went viral
Shawn Dormishan, 41, is a former Santa Clara County paramedic and reserve firefighter who now sells software to public safety agencies.
As a union leader, Dormishan said the union members drove his actions similar to how parents should influence board votes.
Dormishan has one kid at Stevenson Elementary School and another kid in special education at Monta Loma Elementary School.
In August 2022, Dormishan took his son to transitional kindergarten at Theuerkauf Elementary School without a mask and recorded a video of the principal telling him to leave.
Dormishan’s video went viral on Fox News, and the board voted to stop requiring masks two days later.
Dormishan said he’s heard more stories of parents being stonewalled by the district office since then.
Efforts to meet with Rudolph are met with resistance and apathy, and efforts to appeal to the board are met with copy-and-paste responses, Dormishan said.
Dormishan said he would continue standing up to the district and advocating for parent rights if he gets elected.
“Anything that’s taught that’s controversial, it needs to be disclosed to the parents and it needs to be allowed to be taught within what specific religious or cultural lens that they may have,” Dormishan said at a forum with the Cuesta Park Neighborhood Association.
Dormishan said he’s voting against Measure AA, a tax to charge property owners 15 cents per building square foot per year, or $261 for the average-sized home in Mountain View.
Henry focused on equity
Lisa Henry, 49, has been a parent in the district since 2014, with her daughter currently attending Graham Middle School and a son in high school. She’s been a classroom volunteer and a PTA board president.
Henry said she’s afraid new board members won’t be focused on equity, and they’ll roll back programs like the “Reimagining Castro” initiative.
“Reimagining Castro” is a three-year program to provide students with extra support at Castro Elementary School, where there’s a high number of English learners, low-income families and homeless students.
The plan includes changes to the schedule that allow for academic intervention and daily breakfast, nonprofits running programs for kids and extra support for new teachers.
Henry said she’s worried about the widening gaps in achievement and well-being as the district continues to see longterm ripple effects from the Covid years.
Henry said she’s seen Rudolph “approach his role with a growth mindset, making adjustments throughout his time in the position.”
Rudolph was hired in 2015. Henry said she would advise him to communicate changes earlier and table proposals if the timing isn’t right.
No campaign for Mize
Nancy Mize, 74, is on the ballot but isn’t running a campaign. She couldn’t be reached for comment.
Reed aims to model
Ana Reed, 43, is a teacher at Miller Middle School in the Cupertino Union School District.
Reed teaches electives like food science, fashion and crafts, and screen printing.
Reed said she fundraises for equipment and materials on her own, so she’s “hypersensitive” to spending.
“I serve on various district groups to stay on top of the most recent educational topics and tend to be the pilot person on a lot of new initiatives,” Reed said. “I know what type of support educators need to fulfill their goals of educating the whole child. I know what students need to thrive. I know how to proactively develop programs and manage them in a sustainable fashion.”
Reed’s kids attended Bubb Elementary School, Landels Elementary School and Graham Middle School. She said she let them to decide whether to go to their local schools or the district where she teaches.
“In my home, all big decisions require family input and discussion — even if the voters are preschoolers,” Reed said. “They stated their position and provided justification, so they both started kinder at Bubb.”
Reed said her kids have advocated at school board meetings for themselves and their classmates who might not have involved parents, and now she wants to do the same on the school board.
“Modeling is a very effective teaching method,” Reed said.
Case-Lo a disability advocate
Christine Case-Lo, 48, is an in-home support services worker for her son who is developmentally disabled. She volunteers on the Special Education Local Plan Area Community Advisory Committee and for the Girl Scouts of Mountain View.
Case-Lo has had children in the district for 16 years. She started speaking at board meetings because the district kept moving her son’s special day classes to different campuses — from Monta Loma to Stevenson to Imai Elementary School.
Eventually, Case-Lo’s son had to go to Creative Learning Center, a private school paid for by the district that could help his specific needs.
Finally the district is trying to keep special education classes at one school for long enough that families can become part of the community and students can feel more comfortable, Case-Lo said in a questionnaire.
Case-Lo said she wants to make it easier for family members to volunteer in schools by streamlining the fingerprinting and mandated reporter training requirements.
She said she disagreed with the board’s renewal of a contract for executive coaching that parents objected to at a meeting on Aug. 22.
The district canceled the contract last month after continued pushback over how much was getting spent on trainings and wellness programs outside of the classroom.
“There has been a history of approving administrative services contracts without fully vetting providers or having options for vendors,” Case-Lo said. “I want to see policies put in place to make this process more transparent and open to public comment.”
White worried about gender
Raymond White, 79, is a retired biology professor from Old Dominion University of Norfolk, Va., and the City College of San Francisco.
White said he has a 3-year-old grandson who might attend Monta Loma Elementary School.
“My interest in the operations of the district arises from it being a social institution where the next generation of children spend six or so hours, five days a week,” White said in a questionnaire.
White has looked into the district for how teachers talk about race, sex and gender in the classroom. He wrote a paper for a parent group called Moms for Liberty Santa Clara County that looked at an increase in transgender students.
“About 98% of the people who present as transgender now, they are not as transgender as the people who were doing it 20 years ago,” White said at a candidate forum. “They’re getting it from somewhere socially … Most of it probably comes from the internet and peers, but some of that is coming from the school with the introduction of pronouns in the first grade by the teachers.”
What new board will get
The new board will be entering a fluid situation. Rudolph went on leave on Oct. 7, days after announcing the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team would be doing an “extraordinary audit” of the district, which occurs when there’s suspicion of fraud.
Chief Academic Officer Cathy Baur has been acting superintendent for the last week and a half.
The board is scheduled tonight to appoint an interim superintendent and consider firing an unnamed public employee.