|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Grace Mah never set out to work in education.
The 17-year incumbent to serve Area 1 on the Santa Clara County Board of Education describes herself as a “recovering engineer” who spent the first half of her career in high-tech.
After nearly two decades at HP and Agilent, Mah enrolled her eldest child in a Mandarin/English preschool and was transformed by the experience. Wanting to bring language immersion to the Palo Alto public school system, she helped build a grassroots organization of families that worked with local officials to found the Ohlone Mandarin Immersion program. The work brought a new focus to her life.
“I just really bloomed, if you will, in education,” she says. In 2007 she ran her first successful campaign for the board. “And 17 years later, I’m still really enthusiastic.”
Mah, a longtime resident of Palo Alto, is well aware of the disparities facing residents of Santa Clara County. She calls the region a “macrocosm” of the state — with representation from all different kinds of schools and students. It’s this demographic diversity that she finds most challenging and rewarding. She calls the board “a safety net for the most vulnerable kids,” including youth who are incarcerated, expelled, living in the foster care system, or are otherwise socioeconomically disadvantaged.
For Mah, early childhood education is a key tenet of this effort, and it’s never too soon to start enrolling kids in school. “My personal program is universal preschool,” she says. “Increasing early learning for all kids has the biggest impact on closing the achievement gap (and) improving economic outcomes.”
This goal was the root of Strong Start, a coalition of local leaders and educators that Mah founded to expand access to early learning opportunities for all children in the county, from birth to age 8. Every year until the pandemic hit, Strong Start would send delegates to Sacramento to advocate for more resources to support early learning, special education, professional development for teachers, and other educational needs. “I’m not trying to just throw money at our problems,” she says, “but we are so woefully underfunded in California.”
When it comes to the county’s most underserved students, Mah recognizes that managing the charter schools has long been one of the most visible and contentious issues. Disagreement about Bullis Charter School in particular has been a sticking point within the board — and a major source of discourse and fundraising in previous trustee elections.
Bullis has faced flak from the community and the SCCBOE for its students demographics, which includes a disproportionately low number of socioeconomically disadvantaged youth. Mah was one of three trustees to vote against the motion — which ultimately passed — to grant Bullis a conditional charter renewal. She expressed concern about the requirement that Bullis set goals for enrolling historically underserved student groups, a decision that she said was unprecedented.
“We may not ding them, so to speak, but certainly they’re going to be measured against the target,” she says. “It’s not something that’s legally required in charter school law, and it could be used as a very heavy stick.”
If re-elected, Mah would oversee Area 1, which serves school districts in Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and North Sunnyvale. Looking forward, she wants to continue studying the efficacy of alternative education programs — particularly those for incarcerated and special education youth. And, as the most senior member of the board, Mah says her experience is particularly valuable right now.
“Three of my colleagues on the board have never been elected officers or on school boards. So they’ve got a lot to learn, and I think I’ve got a lot to share,” she says. “I want to keep that institutional memory.”
Her endorsements include San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former California State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, SCCBOE Trustee Joseph Di Salvo, and other regional and local government officials.
