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Sanjay Dave
Former board member, semiconductor industry executive | sanjay4mvla.org
Top priorities
- Academic success for every student
- Student wellbeing
- Hiring and retaining great teachers
Public service
- Mountain View Los Altos High School District Board of Trustees (2016–2024)
Community involvement
- Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation, board member
- Rotary Club of Mountain View
- Hope’s Corner, past board member and volunteer
- MVLA High School Foundation, past board member
Sanjay Dave is looking to rejoin the Mountain View Los Altos High School District Board of Trustees after a four-year break in hopes of bettering students’ education and expanding support services.
Dave is one of three candidates vying for the Area 3 slot on the five-member board. He’s running against current board members Catherine Vonnegut and Thida Cornes.
This is the first time the district will elect its board members from separate trustee areas, rather than through an at-large system. Previously, residents throughout the district all voted on each trustee. Now, the district is split into five segments, with each area picking one trustee.
Trustee Area 3 encompasses an eastern portion of Mountain View south of Central Expressway, including the Cuesta Park, Old Mountain View and Shoreline West neighborhoods.
Dave first joined the board in 2016, when his daughter was attending Mountain View High School. His son graduated from the same school in 2023. He served two consecutive terms, before taking a break in 2024 as his career responsibilities mounted. Now, he told the Voice that things have simmered down, and he’s ready to pick up where he left off.
“I’m running again because our schools are excellent,” Dave told the Voice. “But excellent isn’t the same as excellence for everyone, and that’s the work that isn’t finished.”
During Dave’s time on the board, he said that he was especially focused on academics. Dave – the product of public schooling in Colorado – described the public education system as “one of the crowns” of America, and that his goal is to improve education quality in MVLA.
“I want to reinvest in it more – invest in our teachers, and just continue to improve on it,” Dave said. “Every person from every other country wants to come here because of the schools, because of what America has to offer, and there’s value in that. We want to continue to have that.”
Last year, MVLA was rated the top school district in the Bay Area and the second-best district in the state by Niche, a school ratings website.
Looking back at his first two terms on the board, Dave said he took particular pride in his work expanding the district’s Middle College program. Middle College allows MVLA students to take both high school and college classes at Foothill College. While he was a trustee, the board grew the program from two to four teachers.
“It’s been life changing for those students who switched from the traditional high school to Middle College,” Dave said. “I think having that option is fantastic.”
Dave added that another priority for him is the AVID program, which helps students from underrepresented backgrounds prepare to attend a four-year college. Looking ahead, Dave wants to further grow AVID so more students can participate.
Dave was on the board back in 2023, when the district first implemented its ethnic studies class. At the time, he said he had concerns about specific course materials, and whether the class would offer a balanced perspective on controversial issues, but he ultimately voted for the course. Last year, the board voted 3-2 to shorten the class to be a single semester.
Dave told the Voice that shortening the course was “fine,” but that the current board’s process wasn’t ideal, with a lack of effective communication about whether students needed to drop the class or otherwise take action after the course was shortened.
“It seems like the way they rolled it out and moved from a year to a semester was chaotic,” Dave said. “It wasn’t communicated very well to the students or the parents.”
The Voice has published an individual profile of each Mountain View Los Altos High School District Board of Trustees candidate. To view those articles, and the rest of our election coverage, head over to our 2026 Election Center.
