Check out Palo Alto Online's Board of Education Voter Guide for comparisons of all four candidates' views on mental health, communication, academic access and diversity.

Palo Alto Unified alum and current district parent Shana Segal is running for a spot on the school board in hopes of bringing a teacher's perspective to the governing body.

Over the years, Segal said she has considered whether to run for the school board. After seeing low teacher morale during the pandemic and what she views as a lack of effective communication from the district, Segal decided the time was right to throw her hat in the ring.

A Gunn High School graduate, Segal worked for 10 years as an English and English Language Development teacher at Lynbrook High School in San Jose. During that time, she also served as chair of the English Language Development department.

Since leaving full-time teaching, Segal has run a school consulting business, through which she helps families choose their children's schools, including looking at both public and private options. While campaigning, Segal said that she has put her school consulting business on hold and that she wouldn't continue with it if elected.

She has two children currently attending Palo Verde Elementary School and has worked as a substitute teacher for Palo Alto Unified, a role that she said she started during the pandemic. As a prerequisite to running for the board, Segal said she believed it was important to have kids in the district and to have experience in the classroom.

Among Segal's top concerns: She has seen multiple situations when teachers haven't been listened to, something she wants to remedy. One example she gave was the district's adoption of an English Language Arts curriculum last spring that many teachers on the committee piloting the curriculum did not support.

In response to a questionnaire from the Palo Alto Weekly, Segal criticized past decisions of the school board, writing, "Whether a decision is related to academics, students, budgets or staffing, decision-making should be transparent and based on evidence and established data — not on politics or expediency."

A focus of her campaign has been on bolstering communication and restoring a more collaborative environment within the district. At a candidate forum hosted by the Palo Alto Weekly, Segal drew attention to low teacher and parent morale as a particular problem.

"Getting the morale back up is essential through better communication and transparency," Segal said.

In the candidate questionnaire, she also pointed to Superintendent Don Austin's communication style in particular as an area for improvement.

"Many parents have felt Dr. Austin's responses to them have been dismissive and/or intimidating. We need to cultivate a culture of mutual respect," she wrote.

Segal noted in particular that Palo Verde families were not notified of the school's move to the Greendell School site while its permanent campus is under construction. According to Segal, many parents learned about the move from a newspaper article rather than directly from the district. After finding out about the decision, Segal said that she advocated for buses to be provided, which the district ended up offering.

Focusing on the individual child

One theme that Segal has returned to consistently is differentiated instruction, which refers to techniques that teachers can use to meet the needs of students at different academic levels within the same classroom.

"PAUSD's curriculum and instructional practices should be designed and delivered to engage, challenge and support every child so all children can effectively learn, develop interests and experience growth academically and socially," Segal wrote in the candidate questionnaire. "A 'one size fits all' model does not work well for students and is not equitable."

Supporting and training educators in how to differentiate their lessons can create more equitable outcomes and reduce gaps in achievement, Segal said.

To close gaps in achievement, Segal also supports having free afterschool programs to help students who are below grade level in reading, writing or math, as well as implementing systems for teachers to detect struggling students more quickly.

When it comes to math curriculum in particular, Segal has opposed the suggestion in California's Math Framework draft that Algebra I be delayed until ninth grade. She supports the current system of offering Algebra I in eighth grade, with the option for students to take a test to skip one grade level ahead during middle school.

At the same time, Segal said in an endorsement interview that she is in favor of "de-laning" middle school math so that students are generally taking the same classes, rather than being sorted based on achievement level. That's what the district's current system, which developed in the 2019-2020 school year, aims to do, but Segal said that not enough support was given to teachers to implement the new system well.

"I do think waiting to track until later — which is high school — helps promote equity and helps to close the achievement gap — but it needs to be done right," Segal said.

Another area in which Segal sees a need for greater individualization is with special education students. Segal said that she has heard from families that the students' Individualized Education Plans aren't sufficiently tailored to their unique needs.

"As a teacher, I view every child as an individual," Segal said.

Addressing the mental health challenges that students are facing is another priority for Segal. While she has said that the district's decision to move towards hiring in-house staff could be great, she has also cautioned that it will be important to assess whether students trust the new therapists.

She also advocates for looking at the impact of homework, the bell schedule and course requirements on students' mental health. When it comes to homework in particular, Segal has spoken positively about the district's intent to reduce student stress with its homework policy but said that she wants to see if the implementation is actually achieving that aim. Some students have raised concerns about inconsistent enforcement of the current homework rules. Segal noted that she served on a committee developing homework guidelines when she taught at Lynbrook and would bring her experience and lessons learned to Palo Alto.