Big props to our Superintendent and School Board for their swift response and also for their decision to get a third party to investigate the JLS incident. In a district with 10K students, it's inevitable that violent incidents occasionally happen. Thoroughly examining what transpired and how to learn from it moving forward in a non-biased way (and keeping confidential information about teachers and minors confidential) is the professional and right course of action. It has been really disappointing to witness some parents in our community try to vilify and blame our Superintendent for the incident and use a really unfortunate situation as a tool to drum up angst and anger in our district. There has been a lot of rallying around the injured teachers, and rightfully so; however, I also really hope that the student is okay and is receiving the support they need. I wonder if they had an IEP and if the IEP was followed? This is the kind of question that the 3rd party investigation will no doubt examine. In situations like this, both sides are often victims and deserve our empathy. Again, thanks to our PAUSD leadership for their level-headed and professional management of yet another challenging situation. And thanks for all the progress that our district has seen this school year, especially in the areas of mental health, safety (awesome to now have cameras on our campuses!), reading proficiency, and in finally making inroads in narrowing the achievement gap in our district. Bravo!

Hey look! The district all of a sudden found some money to help students!

If this is anything like past responses, expect the "education", the programs and the speakers to last only a year or two. Once the noise dies down, the district will stop all of the public fanfare. Same thing happened with the sexual harassment speakers, RISE task force, etc... Once the public finds something else to be horrified about, they'll move on.

Has anybody thought about looking into the CAUSES of student misbehavior before rushing in with SOLUTIONS? Or are we simply going to repeat the same mistake we made with the suicides—assuming we know that is "wrong," when we don't really and have asked no questions nor run any studies—and rushing in with all our prescriptions of how to set things right? We have been like a doctor assigning a treatment before even doing the diagnosis.

How can this possibly be healthy? How can it possibly solve the problem? Why has no one explained to us exactly how these "coaches" are going to "intervene"? What will they be doing? Do not the District's parents and teachers deserve some elaboration?

I think the teachers, and the parents, would be comforted to hear some deeply felt—not bureaucratic—comments from the superintendent on the real context teachers are working in.

If we get an active shooter on campus, its not the superintendent or any school member or a principal or a counselor who may get shot and killed. It would most likely be a very caring teacher who is willing to lay down his or her life for the young persons in the classroom. Surely the superintendent knows this, and the public too.

In recent years, as we follow the national news of school shootings, time and again we have heard of the wounding or deaths of teachers, not others.

If anyone thinks this is alarmist, then I would ask just why we are holding regular "code" drills at our schools, practicing barricading the doors and turning of the lights and being quiet. Or perhaps such things are merely "alarmist" too?

In 2010 we had a shelter-in -place at Gunn because a student had brought a gun onto the campus, which was swarming with police. Lights were out in classrooms, desk piled against doors, and teachers and students all crouched on the floors. Believe me, no district official was in any danger; a shooter naturally goes to a classroom, with a teacher, to do as much killing as he can before being taken down, in the end, by police.

Why do people in this district not speak of this reality and show a little more gratitude and kindness to those willing to shelter their children with their own bodies?

For, have we not already seen, in this current case, that the violence was not directed against the superintendent or principal or board members, but at two teachers? Do we really doubt that, if we want our teachers to be willing to give their lives as part of their profession, we ought to treat them with a little more respect, and even, god forbid, awe?

These things are real, not hyperbole. And I would advise the teachers to cast aside their shyness and press this issue.

Good questions raised by Marc Vincenti...I used to play a fun game with my friends. Those soup cans got a beating!

"Palo Alto Mom" sure sounds a lot like a board member/superintendent.

It took parents and teachers to speak up before the "level-headed and professional management" did anything. This was not the first act of violence against a teacher. The moves being made are not much more than a public relations effort.

This incident was merely one they could not keep quiet, so they were forced to act. I doubt this was done out of the goodness of their hearts.

"Palo Alto Mom" also says that the district has made progress in the area of safety? Really? You know that the incident directly refutes that argument. Campuses are safer because of cameras? How so? Students are assaulting teachers! Please explain how the cameras are keeping the schools safe.

Marc Vicenti's second comment is well worth noting.

We have already had a couple of incidents at Paly, one where police had to patrol the campus and another where a threat had been written on a note attached to a classroom door.

Our students are already in survival mode when these incidents occur. Unfortunately, I think it is the teachers and admin who are not reacting when these incidents occur. How can our high schools be safe at lunch time, or in the 10 minutes after school finishes for the day and everyone is leaving. These are dangerous times, much more likely than when the students are safe in classrooms.

Additionally, what will happen if a serious earthquake happens at these times? The schools plan for this only for the times students are in the classrooms, not as everyone is arriving, or leaving, or eating lunch wherever.

Keeping students safe from violence is a huge topic. I am not sure to what extent this is realised by the schools.

I'm afraid some of the optimism on this thread is not warranted.

Mental health? Surely anyone reading the papers knows that the Centers for Disease Control has just announced, this spring, the worst numbers for suicidal feelings among U.S. girls that have ever been recorded? And can we possibly be much better off in Palo Alto, where if there is anything that the history of this high-pressure town has taught us is that our children are especially fragile and self-destructive?

Cameras at school? I can't think that this would have made any difference at Gunn in 2010, when I was a teacher there, and a student cut her wrists in a girls' bathroom. (I doubt the cameras are in bathrooms.) And this incident was concealed from district parents by principal Denise Herrmann and superintendent Skelly.

And are we not aware, from the findings this spring of the SWIFT report ordered by the school board, that teacher morale in the Palo Alto Unified School District is at one of the lowest levels in the state? Will that be of any help to our depressed girls or fragile boys?

And it would be folly to blame this low morale on our teachers, who through no wish of their own, are now to have chatbots imposed upon them—just as so many scientists, as in this morning's NY Times, are warning of the dangers that artificial intelligence poses to civilization (their words, not my hyperbole). Our teachers now must deal with opioids in the classroom and, apparently, student violence and misbehavior at high levels.

No to mention—and anyone who has suffered grief will know this—the teacher's loss of 13 students only about a decade ago has brought them grief that will take a lifetime to fade away, if ever.

And yet many in this town, a decade ago, actually accused the teachers of causing the suicides! What do we think that did to their morale?

It's hard to tell from the info given, but is this a possible case of taking mainstreaming too far? Hopefully the investigation results will be made public (in a privacy-preserving way, of course).

I am very happy to see Marc Vincenti chime in on this thread and that he continues to have passionate feelings for this subject and for our students' wellbeing. I feared after all the non/negative responses he got from school administrators over the years that he had completely given up.

We should never give up on our kids.

For those who do not know who Marc Vincenti is or what he tried for years go do with "Save the 2008," please see here: Web Link

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[Portion removed.] I don't see how sitting on a ticking time bomb until it explodes is levelheaded and professional. Would you call a doctor levelheaded and professional if he/she did little to deal with an illness and waited for it to become terminal before acting?

The fact is that the district leadership did not see fit to properly train the people on the ground, nor did they see fit to intervene "professionally" until it was too late. As an ex-board president once stated, "We don't deal in what ifs". Well, other professionals do to be prepared when a dangerous situation arises. Professionals train and prepare. 25 Churchill did not do so in this case. It was only a matter of time before their luck ran out.

Regarding strides in mental health and the achievement gap, some hard data not manipulated or spun by 25 Churchill would be nice to see. How is achievement measured? If it is measured by fewer D's and F's chalk that up to significantly altered grading scales and heavy administrative pressure on teachers not to be "hard graders". As far as mental health, I'd be curious to know how cutting counselors factors into the so-called gains. Opening faux "wellness centers" and bringing in more outside help after the fact is mostly about public relations. Ask the parents of students with social emotional and learning difficulties what they think about services, especially under Mr. Austin. Their take may not be as rosy as Palo Alto Mom's.

[Portion removed.]

PAUSD is finally doing something. Our child attends elementary school here and sadly she happened to be one of the targets of someone with violent behavior (because she’s petite and never fights back.) Unfortunately not much has been done and I have been repeatedly told that “this happens…” I really don’t want to tell my child that it’s “normal” to be beaten at school. Now that even the staff are attacked maybe something will be done. Overall I’m disappointed ????

I don’t immediately care why the very rare, unusual student violently attacked the two teachers.
Shifting the focus to “the community” pondering why, oh, why doesn’t matter. I’m certain this community does not endorse throwing tables at teachers. We are not the reason why this child threw the table.

Public safety of teachers, students, staff must take precedence over pondering what went wrong with the child.
That is a separate issue to be addressed separately.

The school with the very vast majority of well-functioning humans must carry on day to day.
Removing the violent child is absolutely necessary. Adding immediate safety protections for staff, students, teachers happens before we “solve” the why of the violent child’s actions. In fact, we’ll never know owing to child privacy protections.

To an early comment: there are not "two sides." There are attackers and there are the attacked. One of the latter suffered a miscarriage.

Ronnie, I'm so sorry your daughter was bullied and attacked at school--that is sickening. I hope she's safe now. School can be tough enough without the daily threat of violence. Can most adults imagine going to work every day knowing a co-worker might harm them? And worse yet, know that nothing much would be done about it? Violent students need to be removed from the classrooms so students and teachers can feel safe.

A staff survey that was released about this time last year showed that only about 20% thought morale was good, and roughly 20% thought staff development was effective. Mr. Austin’s response was “No more Zoom”, and “we mirror national trends' (these same themes just surfaced in one of his recent “newsletters”). In other words, the abysmally low numbers were normal, and he and his leadership team bore no responsibility. Could you imagine what would happen to a teacher who posted such numbers with students and parents? Instead, Austin targets effective teachers who do not buy his agenda. This is what you get from Mr. Austin and it does not work unless your metrics for success are Niche rankings, AAA bond ratings, and self-praising newsletters.

Mr. Austin inherited many challenges when he came on board, and he had to wrestle with a pandemic. He had many opportunities to make improvements and inroads into the community. By most accounts he has not capitalized on those opportunities, and he has made things worse. I don’t see any compelling reason as to why his contract should be renewed. Time to start fresh and hopefully find someone local who has the knowledge and skill set to right the ship.

Sadly, other than upfront costs, there are really no compelling reasons to keep a child in public schools anymore.

[Portion removed.]

When Austin offered "voluntary" offers of early retirement to some of our District's most experienced and skilled teachers (offers that did not feel voluntary to the many teachers I spoke with), he revealed his irrational misperception that teachers are fungible and that replacing experienced, more expensive teachers with new inexperienced teachers would not impact students. When he proudly closed all schools for covid at the first possible moment, refusing to open them until literally forced to by parents (much later than neighbor schools), he demonstrated zero concern for student mental health. His refusal to address the continued problem of sexual harassment and assault at our high schools, his indifference [portion removed] to students with learning differences (e.g. by cutting essential programs, including Room 19 at Ohlone), and his blind eye to ongoing racial discrimination throughout the district, all create the impression that he truly does not like children.

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PAUSD is suffering because our Superintendent mistreats teachers, students, and parents. His only negotiation style is bullying. Under him, class sizes have increased while it is proven that smaller class sizes are better for both teachers and students. He has eliminated crucial classroom aids. He created a bell schedule hostile to students, teachers, & families.

Nothing will improve until Austin is replaced. The School Board needs to get that done, or we should replace them instead. Enough already.

@ Rebecca Eisenberg

To be honest, many teachers resisted re-opening during Covid, myself included. However, the resistance was due mostly to a lack of faith in Mr. Austin. [Portion removed] Myself and others simply assumed that he and his "leadership team" at 25 Churchill would not take the proper measures to ensure student and staff safety. We missed the classroom as much as the students, but were not willing to place our lives in the hands of Mr. Austin. I think many in the community are now beginning to see why. I hope the people of Palo Alto conclude that it is time for change. He has "lost the locker room" so to speak.

There is a petition and open letter calling for the School Board not to renew Don Austin's contract. If the community feels it is time for new leadership, you should sign the petition and make your voice heard. Or come in person to Board meetings or sign up to speak remotely. We all need to send a very clear message to the Board that his contract should not be renewed and the current approach of inaction/lack of oversight by the Board is not acceptable.

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By the way, last year a staff meeting at Greene that was supposed to be devoted to “discipline protocols” was superseded at the last minute by the District Office. Why? Because they wanted to roll out some new reading enhancement software in a rush.

The presentation technology was glitching and the briefing was delayed by 20 minutes. The presenters were unprepared and unable to field questions about how the software would be integrated into the classroom. My guess is that very few teachers are even using the software at this point.

As far as the much more important discipline protocols meeting, well it never happened. Just another example showing how out of touch 25 Churchill is with the realities on the ground. You reap what you sow as recent events have demonstrated.

@Rebecca Eisenberg, not sure where you got the impression that Austin closed schools at the first possible moment. IIRC, there was already an outbreak at Jordan/Greene, and the school board had a meeting on a Thursday to decide what to do. They decided to keep the schools open for parents who chose to send their kids; tfe following day (Friday) the county told the schools to close. I would actually consider him not preparing for school closure to be a strike against him when it was so obvious what was going to happen.

Regardless, this seems to me to be the usual PAUSD pandering. Hire more people to observe and not actually do anything. I would rather see the funds for these jobs be used to send the more disabled/violent schools to other, specialized schools where they can receive the care they need. It's not waving the white flag to acknowledge our schools can't accommodate that; it is about providing the right level of care for all.

"There is a petition and open letter calling for the School Board not to renew Don Austin's contract. If the community feels it is time for new leadership, you should sign the petition and make your voice heard. Or come in person to Board meetings or sign up to speak remotely. We all need to send a very clear message to the Board that his contract should not be renewed and the current approach of inaction/lack of oversight by the Board is not acceptable."

@Concerned parent, can you give us a link to the petition?

Rather than quibbling about closing the schools, I would rather pay more attention to how the schools dealt with schooling while closed and more importantly how they were reopened.

From memory, parents complained that the zoom classes were not working and when the schools went back in August, that was a mess.

Closing the schools for so long and the breakdown of social skills for so many as a result of how long the closure lasted is something we are paying for as so many young people missed out on socialization and have never made that up. College campuses are dealing with students who have zero socialization skills and have never learned to listen to other points of view. Additionally, so many students of all ages are very dependent on parents' for everything. They lost any independence they had or were never given a chance to do things for themselves. This is not a particular Palo Alto problem only, but we must realise that the schools were never considering the students' emotional needs just the pressure from the teachers union.

I blame the school board/superintendent for keeping Palo Alto schools closed much longer than anywhere else. This is unforgiveable.

My heart breaks for this institution. There are patterns here that are not hard to discern that have led us to this terrible moment. The Administration has carefully constructed some narratives that the Board is having a hard time escaping. First, "the teachers complain a lot, and therefore can/should be largely ignored". The issue of violence has been widely discussed on campuses, but the narrative causes admins to not hear. They know they can't get in the way of the narrative. Second, "we are a top school district with top administrators who always make the best decisions." Again, this leads to everyone in the hierarchy suppressing bad news. Third, "I, the superintendent, represent the majority of this community. Any disagreement is from a disgruntled, rude minority and can be safely ignored". The Board seems to have bought this one too. The pressure is building. The superintendent seems to have been the willing pain sponge for a lot of the Board's difficult choices. They are ultimately responsible to you, to our children and to all stakeholders. They clearly need help in seeing beyond the compelling narrative created at 25 Churchill. Please help them understand their blind spots. The institution is hurting. Children are hurting. Morale is rock bottom. (Niche: #1 School District, #21 Place to work.)

I hope that all readers know that the statewide SWIFT study, ordered by our board, reported this past spring that the PAUSD teachers have virtually the lowest level of morale of SWIFT's 8-school study group.

At the same time, last fall, our teachers reported "Low or Poor" morale running at 50%

As a former teacher at Gunn, I would attribute the low morale to:

grief still demoralizing teachers from the suicides from 2005-2015;

the shelter-in-place for a student on campus with a gun in 2010; abysmal leadership [portion removed] from Denise Herrmann;

the sudden need (promoted by Mr. Austin) to incorporate chatbots (even as hundreds of A.I. scientists are warning that it could lead to the "extermination of mankind"—see New York Times front page last week) into all departments of the school (particularly hurting English teachers' desire to check plagiarism);

the need to know how to respond to a fentanyl overdose (a problem that the Santa Clara Co. Sherrif has warned us about);

the building of only 29 housing units for teachers when there are 900 teachers in the District);

and a history in the District of superintendents and principals ordering changes in curriculum (and even the proposal for an entirely new high school) without meaningful consulting with teachers.

Worse, at the same time we are seeing our teachers' morale at such a low, the Centers for Disease Control last spring reported a record high for the suicidal thinking of U.S. girls.

(And we have no reason to think Palo Alto, home of so many suicides, is any better off. (Rates for boys are lower, but still concerning.)

Inform yourself on these things, on which our newspaper of record, the Weekly, is not adequately reporting!

In a nutshell, what we currently have is demoralized teachers teaching demoralized students!

Can this be a safe situation?

"Demoralized teachers teaching demoralized students!"

Yet Gunn and Paly are rated #1 and #6 in the entire state with a lot of competition. If the students feel so demoralized, it's not affecting them academically.

Maybe it's the whiny residents of Palo Alto? By far the whiniest city I've ever lived in.

@Jennifer

Niche rankings are geared toward real estate sales, and they are not considered very accurate as far as school quality. Other rankings, like the more established US News and World Report, put Gunn at #188 and PALY at #295 nationally and #22 and #34 statewide. Nonetheless, PAUSD sees fit to only tout Niche rankings. It helps their shiny narrative; hence it is featured on the front page of the PAUSD Website. No mention of U.S. News anywhere.

What none of the rankings do is measure the quality of the District leadership and it is a "hidden rule" that Palo Alto students will test well and perform well academically no matter how bad the school environment may be. That does not mean that they are happy and well adjusted. In all honesty, most students I encountered in my 27 years in PAUSD were just fine, but it was not due to the school environment.

School climate and staff morale have taken a big hit under the current leadership and all roads lead to Don Austin. The people who see and feel the impact of his leadership are not whiners, they are dedicated stakeholders who see a problem and want to fix it. That's what civic minded citizens do in a democratic society. Call it whining if you want. I prefer civic engagement. Something Mr. Austin fears.

There's a difference between civil engagement and whining. Sadly, it happens on every thread, regardless of topic. You don't see it on other news sites under the same ownership.

As far as closed schools, it's probably what a lot of parents wanted. It's a liberal area, and liberals were strongly in favor of keeping the schools closed and masking up.

If you want someone gone, and there is a petition, just sign it.

Palo Alto schools are excellent regardless of ranking, and in California that's hardly the norm. If you have kids in the district, you should count your blessings regardless of what you think of a certain employee.

@ Jennifer

Petition signed. But it helps to get the word out, and this is a good forum. If it wasn't you wouldn't be sharing your thoughts here as well.

Thank you for your civic engagement.

@Online Name - if you are still looking for the petition you can find it on social media including next door and Facebook Palo Alto groups. Unfortunately I don’t have a way to share link with you directly.

Maybe someone such as PTA, PAEA, CSEA, etc... can put together a survey rating PAUSD leadership.

Who or what is involved in the yearly evaluation of PAUSD administrators?

Fall 2020. PAUSD required 6-8 feet of Pandemic at home Zoom space for PE. My kid had 3’. No privacy, no space. And was required to have a camera on. Who was watching ? where were the safety nets of this emergency online media? We were all at home. No space, no privacy, no fun. His teacher failed him none the less. While his teacher’s dogs incessantly barked, where it was a “Jane Fonda” work out enviro, where he (we( had no square footage nor room to perform during an unprecedented time of “lock down” at the forced Pandemic home schooling. Whether we were in an RV on ECR, a relatives overcrowded space or nothing in between. His teacher failed him! A teacher w empathy, embracing the emergency and doing w what was available to themselves, their credential and the students who endured might have prevailed success. Absurd that ANY student would be given a NM for PE. Some Cali districts did an exercise log. Mine, a then 9th grader, who skateboarded outside to get air and physical outlet while he was having forced distanced class of unknown classmates, no friends. No child should be failed at PE during 2020-21, the months of forced distance Zoom learning in 2020-22. Let alone children who were surviving such abysmal one room apartments w a sibling too, a me as a primary care giver plus other family adults in the midst / mix. It was unprecedented times. Why punish a child for we were all figuring it out, moment to hour, weeks to months. Now he may not graduate. Because if at home forced zoom PE where our space was squeezed and there was literally no room to perform the impossible.

@Morgan

If there is a formal process for evaluating administrators, it is not shared with staff. Staff do get a chance to fill out evaluation forms, but it is assumed by most staff that nothing is done with them.

As far as I can tell, at least in my recent experience, the main criteria is blind loyalty [portion removed.] In other words performance does not matter as much as towing the party line.

It is certainly possible for a supe to be "effective" in some domains while toxic in others. This supe is effective at "managing up". Sharing only good news with the Board whenever possible. The supe is effective at being a pain sponge - taking the heat for decisions that make constituencies mad. The Board really appreciates that, no doubt. The toxicity is in the wreckage of the marginalized groups. The angry people who have been treated badly, with contempt, not heard. The people who dare to ask for a different way. The toxicity is in the failure to enact even the theater of empathy. It's act fast, decide, ride out the heat, and move on. Morale is extremely low. Many groups of people are tired of being marginalized. The elites in this town are loving being told that their support of the supe is for "equity". Elite liberals love being told they're "doing the work", even though their hatchet man has left behind families, students and staff who have valid concerns. The Board and supe are public servants- they serve YOU. Are you being served by this current regime?

@Anony Mouse - That is spot on! Austin hides from the board many things that are happening in the district.

For a board that claims to embrace transparency, it is disappointing that they allow important items to be kept from them. Segal even said in her election campaign that she didn't feel that Austin was transparent and he didn't treat parents properly.

You would think the board would have a higher set of ethics than what they have been showing.