BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
On the controversial topic of math in Palo Alto, school board candidate Linda Henigin didn’t have a yes-or-no answer on whether she wants all students grouped together or separate classes for advanced and struggling students.
“What I favor is listening to teachers,” Henigin said. “I don’t think it’s the board’s job to dictate how we deliver instruction.”
When pressed on her philosophy, Henigin said she doesn’t want to lock kids into a path where they have a ceiling on their potential. She said she’s generally on the side of “de-laning,” where students are grouped in the same baseline class.
“But I’m open to having flexible grouping,” she said. “We need to ensure that we’re always meeting the wide range of learners that we have.”
De-laning is the educational practice of merging multiple academic tracks — such as remedial, regular and honors classes — into a single, unified classroom. Critics say that de-laning slows down high achievers, and wealthier families will just get private tutoring.
Proponents of laning say it’s a way of responding to systemic bias. Historically, lower academic “lanes” have been filled with minority and low-income students, inadvertently locking them out of advanced pathways early in their schooling.
At a board meeting in May 2025, Henigin said the district already sends high achievers to the most prestigious universities.
“Remember that when parents come to you complaining that our district lacks rigor or that we are ruining their children’s chance to excel. The students who are not yet achieving at their potential are the ones who aren’t yet being well served here,” Henigin said.
Henigin told the board that general education classrooms should be the “default placement” for all students.
Henigin has criticized board member Rowena Chiu after Chiu voted against requiring students to take Ethnic Studies at a contentious board meeting on Jan. 21, 2025.
After the board meeting, Chiu reposted a social media post that called out a Black administrator, who saw racist replies to the post.
Henigin said Chiu’s repost “shredded years of equity work” at a meeting on March 11, 2025.
Henigin accused Chiu of running a “permanent campaign” because her supporters wore campaign t-shirts and brought signs into the boardroom at a meeting on April 22, 2025.
Henigin is running against two of Chiu’s supporters, John Craig and Avery Wang, and is backed by two of Chiu’s unsuccessful opponents from 2024: Chris Colohan and Nicole Chiu-Wang.
Chiu’s former campaign manager, parent Virginia Noh, sued Henigin for allegedly misleading voters by describing herself as a “math teacher” on the ballot.
Henigin doesn’t have a single-subject credential to teach a standalone math class. She worked as a part-time aide at Duveneck Elementary School until June and provided math intervention services to students, Credential and Hiring Analyst Laurel Moore said in a letter following Noh’s lawsuit.
Henigin said teaching math is where she received her primary income this year. “A teacher teaches in a variety of ways. I teach groups of children how to do math,” she said in an interview.
Henigin has been involved in organizing volunteers to watch the Caltrain tracks in an effort to prevent student suicides. She advocated for closing the Churchill Avenue crossing at a council meeting in April.
Henigin said the board’s most important job will be digging the district out of a budget deficit without causing division.
Henigin is endorsed by the Santa Clara County Democratic Party, former Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and nine former school board members: Terry Godfrey, Dana Tom, Susie Richardson, Heidi Emberling, Alan Davis, Barbara Sih Klausner, Cathy Kroymann, Amado Padilla and Diane Reklis.
Be the first to comment