In a board meeting on Tuesday, the Palo Alto Board of Education “separated” with Deputy Superintendent Trent Bahadursingh, leaving the district without a superintendent until the board hires a new one.
This marks the second sudden leadership exit in less than a month, following the board’s mutual “separation” from Superintendent Don Austin in February amid mounting staff tensions and a strained district culture. The Paly Voice asked teachers and students about their thoughts on the situation.
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“In terms of the superintendent, we need someone who’s going to be more stable, more promising, and someone who’s looking to support the students and their mental health and all their beliefs. We also are going to need someone who’s going to protect other teachers.” |
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“This district has exceptional school sites that are, fully functioning and very competent with great students and great teachers. So in the short term, I’m not personally worried.” |
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“I’m not that worried because [we] have a lot of the leadership. There’s a lot of veteran teachers, veteran staff, veteran administration in the district that knows how to do things. So I’m not worried about day to day functionality hardly at all.” — Stephen Foug, history teacher |
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“We need to find somebody who has actually had a good background check and knows what they’re doing and not putting their toxic bias into board meetings.” |
