BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Candidate Avery Wang’s issues with the Palo Alto Unified School District started with math, but he said he’s running to address a broader culture of bullying, unnecessary spending and a lack of transparency.
“Students are not being heard,” he said in an interview.
Wang sued the district in June 2020 for allegedly holding his son back and violating the 2015 Math Placement Act, which requires districts to have fair and transparent placement policies.
“PAUSD must stop trying to act as parents and stick to their job as educators,” Wang said in his lawsuit.
The district agreed to move Wang’s son into a more advanced class and pay him $5,000 to drop his case.
Wang advised another group of parents who sued the district with similar claims in July 2021. Judge Carrie Zepeda ordered the district to update its testing policies, publish more data and pay $38,311 in attorney fees.
Wang said former Superintendent Don Austin canceled Multivariable Calculus in retaliation for the lawsuits. After Austin left in February, the district agreed to offer the advanced math class through Foothill College, but it’s still not in the high school course catalog.
Wang is opposed to “de-laning,” or the elimination of honors and remedial courses so all students are grouped together.
Wang said the district grouped all students in middle school, offering four levels of math in three years. But that’s been discouraging for struggling students and demotivating for advanced students, and the district has ignored testing results, he said.
“It was for the sake of optics,” he said.
Wang said he wants to have an honest conversation about recent suicides of transgender students. He criticized administrators for their proposal to reassign Paly theater teacher Sarah Thurmond, who offered a safe haven to vulnerable students, right in the middle of the suicide crisis.
Wang said there’s a rampant “culture of bullying” in the district.
“It goes from student to student, and even from administration to students and staff, and students bullying staff. And I don’t think the district has been responsive enough to that,” Wang said.
Wang criticized the district for spending $563,414 on a math skip test and $56,599 on two sushi machines. He wants to hire an independent auditor, cut down on no-bid contracts and stop fighting unnecessary legal battles.
“I’m convinced there’s a lot of waste. I’m trying to do some research … I need to understand exactly what’s going on before I come in guns blazing,” Wang said.
Wang is co-founder of Shazam, an app that identifies songs from a snippet of sound. Apple reportedly paid about $400 million to buy Shazam in 2018. Wang now works at Apple as a research scientist.
Wang is endorsed by board member Rowena Chiu, former board member Camille Townsend, former Palo Alto Mayor Lydia Kou, former Los Altos Mayor Lynette Lee Eng and former Menlo Park Mayor Cat Carlton.
All subjects used to be laned at Paly except for social studies. My U.S. History, World History, government and economics classes were so easy I didn’t have to study to get an A. Not so for math, which occupied about 75% of my study time. I could have used some tutoring but my father thought I would become addicted to it. But he did spring for private music lessons. Great.
I think Wang and Craig definitely deserve a shot to try to bring some common sense to this floundering school district. I was about to say things can’t get any worse, but I suddenly thought about Linda Henigin and decided that that’s not true.
I am so glad that we have someone who is not a cog in the PAUSD machine running. We are lucky to have someone who cares so deeply about the district run because all PAUSD kids deserve the best that we can give them and that’s Avery!
For years, Avery’s been quietly helping students and families navigate all the roadblocks this district keeps putting up around appropriate math education. But he sees this as a far bigger problem. PAUSD has been removing academically rigorous classes while the establishment keeps pinning academic stress on high-achieving kids (particularly those aspiring to engineering), like they’re the problem for setting the bar too high. Meanwhile, I see wonderful families leaving for more welcoming districts, and we are left with a mental health crisis. We need a culture change.
With the Jed Foundation report, people are finally listening to evidence-based approaches to protecting mental health, like addressing bullying and treating depression early. Avery will courageously move us past polarization with a no-politics approach to academic excellence and mental health that lifts up all students and supports appreciation for each student’s individual strengths.