|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly described Mary Beth Thompson’s candidacy. Thompson is running for the Area B seat which represents parts of Belmont and San Carlos.
Mary Beth Thompson, the executive director of Summit Prep in Redwood City, is one of three candidates competing to replace Carrie Du Bois, a 13-year veteran of the Sequoia Union High School District board.
Du Bois represents Area B, which includes parts of Redwood City, Belmont and San Carlos.
Thompson is the only Area B candidate who has worked in education. Her opponents include incoming Stanford University freshman and former Sequoia board student trustee Jacob Yuryev, as well as retired PayPal executive Daniel Torunian, who was profiled by this news organization last week.
Du Bois and outgoing Area E Trustee Shawneece Stevenson both endorsed Thompson.
In a statement provided to this news organization, Du Bois said, “I believe Mary Beth is the best candidate for my seat. She is an experienced educator and a wonderful person. I think she will add value to the SUHSD governance team and represent ALL students in the district well.”
After nearly a decade of teaching, Thompson transitioned to administrative work and became executive director last year. She hopes to bring an educator’s perspective to the Sequoia board.
Since January, Thompson has attended nearly all board meetings to learn more about the Sequoia district, she said. “The board members are all incredible, and they bring such diversity from their own experiences. But I realized that there was a piece missing, which was, I think, the educator’s perspective,” Thompson said.
The five-member Sequoia board does not have any former or current teachers
“I have a child. He’s 3 years old. He’s just now starting at White Oaks, which is a San Carlos public preschool. When he’s older, I want to make sure Sequoia High School is a top option for him if that’s where he wants to go,” Thompson said.
“We like to think change can happen fast but change in education often doesn’t move as fast as you want it to,” Thompson added.
Thompson admits her campaign has an elephant in the room: she’s a “charter person.”
Her response: “absolutely not.”
“The whole point of the charter movement when it first started, was to create sort of these smaller incubators. I fully believe that Summit is doing amazing work, and I fully believe Sequoia is doing amazing work,” Thompson said. “At the end of the day, Summit students are Sequoia students; we have way more in common than people think.”
Thompson believes that regardless of the issue, students need to come first.
“When there are decisions that are tense to be made, how do we remove the politics?” she said. “If you use the board to grandstand, not that any of the current members do, the people that suffer are our children. That is just not okay.”
The board has to make decisions that not everyone agrees with. “If we disagree and let it stall us, ultimately students suffer, teachers suffer,” Thompson said.
Conflict with current position
It is unclear whether Thompson can serve on the Sequoia board while staying at Summit Prep. State law blocks district employees from positions on district or county boards but this restriction may not extend to charter school employees.
Thompson has consulted two legal firms and Summit’s lawyers, who agree she can serve on the board without resigning, she said. She plans to verify this with the county as well.
Summit declined to comment, and the county elections office did not respond to a request for comment from this news organization.
The California Attorney General’s Office determined charter school employees could not serve on the county board of education based on a law that blocks district employees from serving on county boards.
The opinion did not answer whether a charter school employee could serve on the chartering district’s board.
This news organization reached out to Deputy Attorney General Anya Binsacca, who was one of the authors of the opinion, but she said she could not comment on past opinions.
“If it were determined that serving on the board would conflict with my role at Summit, I would carefully weigh my options and consider what is in the best interest of both the students and the community,” said Thompson. “My commitment to serving students, whether through my current role or as a school board member, remains my top priority.”
Thompson said she would recuse herself from matters involving Summit, a common practice for board members.
Detracking
“I’ve been following [the detracking debate] to an extent. I don’t necessarily have all the research and data that I would want to come out and make a decision,” Thompson said. “I’m not going to tell you I’m one way or the other, on purpose, not to elude you, but because that is one issue, and it’s actually pretty nuanced.”
The Sequoia district removed some honors classes for freshmen and sophomores to encourage interactions between students and improve education outcomes. A district study found A-G completion and graduation rates for socioeconomically disadvantaged students increased because of the change.
“It’s not just about whether or not there’s honors course, it’s not. It has to do with a sense of belonging,” Thompson said. “It has to do with recognizing the diversity that Sequoia Union has. It has to do with the idea that we don’t pick and choose who our students are but once they are Sequoia students, we embrace all of them,”
Curriculum decisions
Thompson is the only candidate for Area B that has experience teaching in a classroom.
An Ethnic Studies lesson at M-A was a source of tension as some felt it was antisemitic and missing crucial context. Thompson declined to speak on it specifically until she looks at the lesson.
“I do believe that a teacher’s job is to present facts. I do believe that part of those facts come from various perspectives, and then when making sure that students can critically think about those facts, emotions are going to come up,” Thompson said. “Are we training our teachers in a way that they feel as if they can respond to those emotions in a way that allows the student to maintain the learning process?”
Summit Prep handles curriculum very differently than Sequoia. Summit uses a base curriculum that is standardized across subjects but at many district schools, teachers make their own lessons.
“I can tell you this as a teacher, curriculum becomes personal because it’s our bread and butter. But I have my master’s in teaching. I don’t have my master’s in curriculum writing,” said Thompson.
She said the base curriculum allows teachers to make sure they are meeting the standards.
Teachers who want to make changes go through a review process with a coach to ensure the changes align with standards.
“I want to recognize that if I am stepping into the board, my role is not the nitty gritty how, but the what. So I don’t want to do this top down, but I do think that there is room for the board to be looking at curriculums,” Thompson said.
She added that she would look for opportunities for growth and professional development. She also sees the importance of teaching students proper research and sourcing skills so they can form their own conclusions.
Communication
Communication has been a key issue in many of the controversies that the board has faced. Some community members have said the board has consistently hid information from the public.
“I think it’s absolutely crucial to be transparent. I may not make a decision that’s going to please everyone, any leader knows that, but I hope that you understand why I’m making my decision. It’s a lot harder to completely fall apart when you can see where they are coming from,’” said Thompson.
“I think that’s the piece that is missing.” she added.
Student discipline
Thompson emphasized the need for consequences rather than punishment.
“I actually don’t believe in punishment. I believe in consequences. And there is a difference,” Thompson said. “Consequences need to be logical and they need to be relevant to what the harm was done. That doesn’t mean that there’s not consequences. It doesn’t mean there aren’t suspensions and possibly expulsions.”
Thompson wants to bring her experience from Summit to Sequoia but she is not trying to turn Sequoia into Summit.
“I would never want to force a policy on the stakeholders in Sequoia. I think the point of charter schools was to see if something works on a small scale, and then how could that apply elsewhere,” Thompson said.
As a principal, Thompson is involved in working with Summit’s Board of Directors, parents, students and teachers. She said these experiences would help her as a board member. “I hope voters recognize the value of having the educator perspective when it comes to policy, when it comes to communication, when it comes to transparency,” Thompson said.
While Thompson has not met Torunian, she is familiar with Yuryev. “I mean, honestly, as someone who has worked with high schoolers for the last eight years, going on nine, I think it’s awesome that [Yuryev] is going for this,” she said.
Du Bois and outgoing Trustee Shawneece Stevenson have endorsed Thompson, according to Thompson’s campaign website at marybeththompson.com. Antonio López, East Palo Alto mayor and San Mateo County Board of Supervisors District 4 candidate, and former Sequoia trustee Alan Sarver have also endorsed her.
