BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Math advocacy, suicide prevention and international elevator manufacturing — Palo Alto school board candidates are bringing a wide range of experiences to the race.
Three candidates competing for two seats were asked at a debate how they’ve “worked collaboratively with diverse stakeholders to achieve a complex objective.”
Shazam co-founder Avery Wang said he’s mostly known for his math activism and advocacy against eliminating advanced classes in Palo Alto. “But at the same time, I have studied performance data among many demographics, looking at trends and looking for reasons why performance has been dropping,” Wang said at the debate on Oct. 5, hosted by the Palo Alto Council of PTAs.
Elevator safety project
Tech executive John Craig said he deployed a safety system for elevator manufacturing first in Korea and then Japan, China, Australia and finally India. Craig said it was a five-year project that involved groups from many countries, with real-time translation. Craig said he had to adapt the safety system to local laws, regulations and practices.
“Particularly, the Japanese and the Chinese didn’t like working together very much. But by the end of it, the different perspectives were valued,” Craig said at the debate.
Track watch
Classroom aide Linda Henigin talked about her experience organizing volunteers to sit by the Caltrain tracks in an effort to prevent student suicides.
Henigin said she worked with mental health experts to do training, nonprofits to offer logistical and financial support, and police to make sure volunteers were safe.
“So this was really a whole town-wide project and a community-wide project that brought together a variety of stakeholders to get people at the end of the day in their yellow vests with their flashlights at the tracks — in the dark, in the cold, sometimes in the rain — to show care for our young people,” Henigin said at the debate.
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