PALO ALTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL 50 EMBARCADERO RD. PALO ALTO, CA 94301 NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
PAI D PALO ALTO PERMIT #44
The Campanile
Vol. XCIX, No. 6
Palo Alto High School • 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94301 • www.thecampanile.org
Friday, February 3, 2017
Bowers to retire from District SAM YUN
NEWS AND OPINION EDITOR
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A student’s take on the Women’s March
JESSICA WONG/THE CAMPANILE
Fearing an imminent infringement on their liberties under President Donald Trump, protesters take to the streets of San Francisco to advocate for women’s rights. Continued on B3
fter 24 years in the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) and 12 years of working as the PAUSD assistant superintendent, Scott Bowers will retire at the end of the school year. Prior to working in the District office, Bowers spent nearly four years as Assistant Principal at Palo Alto High School. He later transitioned into the role of Principal at Fairmeadow Elementary School for eight years. Bowers does not plan to stay in Palo Alto after retiring, but may seek out a part-time teaching position elsewhere. “I’m retiring from the State Teacher Retirement System and I will start looking around and see what opportunities are there,” Bowers said. “One thing that seems attractive would be to maybe go back into the classroom and teach part-time. I was a math teacher before I became an administrator so it’d be kind of fun to maybe go back and teach math.” Of all his experiences in PAUSD, hosting his first Chow Down Day event was his most memorable. “The first time I stood in front of the entire teacher group on Chow BOWERS
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Budget cuts force exit of Living Wisdom alternative learning Associate Superintendent high school to open at Cubberley McGee expects additional cuts to be made in New school values social-emotional learning and smaller classes future due to monetary constraints in District
NOAH BAUM
STAFF WRITER
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fter 18 months, Associate Superintendent Markus Autrey parted ways with the Palo Alto Unified School (PAUSD) in late December. Autrey’s position, second highest in the District, included supervising and maintaining the education and services of students pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade. PAUSD Superintendent Max McGee, along with Director of Elementary Education Barbara Harris, Director of Secondary Education Sharon Ofek and Chief Student Services Officer Holly Wade, will divide up Autrey’s responsibilities at the District, according to McGee.
“Our budget shortfall is like gravity, it eventually asserts itself.”’
Todd Collins PAUSD Board of Education Member Autrey’s departure was initially kept quiet because it is not a practice of the District to announce employee exits to the public, according to PAUSD Communications and Community Engagement Officer Jorge Quintana. McGee initially discussed options with Autrey soon after discovering a District budget deficit in June 2016. According to Palo Alto Online, the deficit was a result of an approximate three percent drop in projected property-tax revenue. The drop resulted in a total of a $5.2 million budget deficit, which was adjusted to $3.7 million due to a condition of the teacher’s contract
that takes one percent of teacher bonuses when the property-tax revenue is at least 1.5 percent less than the District’s budget was planned on. “It was a budgetary decision,” McGee said. “[PAUSD] had this budget shortfall, so we had to make some immediate cuts.” McGee said he expects several more of these types of decisions to be made in the District moving forward. “We are going to reorganize the District office, so we are going to have to eliminate more than one position here,” McGee said. In the case of any cuts, McGee said that the District tries to reassign staff to another position to the extent that is possible. This could include reassignment to teaching positions if the person has the qualifications. Autrey’s departure was an administrative decision, and the Board of Education was not involved, according to McGee. New Board member Todd Collins said cuts to positions like Autrey’s are inevitable for the District. “Our budget shortfall is like gravity,” Collins said. “It eventually asserts itself.” According to McGee, some projects will take longer for the district without Autrey. This includes aligning class syllabuses and final assessments for all classes and working with the teachers’ union on a new evaluation system. McGee said he expects to announce further plans for restructuring and any elimination of other positions in April or May. “It’s difficult because it involves people,” McGee said. “People who have done a good job.” Autrey did not respond to The Campanile’s request for an interview.
COURTESY OF LIVING WISDOM
Students at Living Wisdom enjoy painting in art class, one of many extracurricular activities offered by the alternative school.
CHARLOTTE CHENG
STAFF WRITER
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tudents interested in alternative learning will now have the opportunity to apply to the new, private Living Wisdom High School located at the Cubberley Community Center in Palo Alto. In their applications, prospective students will answer questions focused on extracurricular interests and personal qualities. They will be evaluated on these questions in lieu of grades and test scores. Until its first semester in fall, Living Wisdom will accept applications from students interested in alternative learning. Classes will incorporate activities such as daily mindfulness meditation, yoga and camping trips into their curricular while also providing core academic courses. Living Wisdom, which already operates a kindergarten-through-
eighth grade school in Palo Alto, seeks to “find a way of working with children that would be balanced and really achieve high results mentally, emotionally, socially, academically, and spiritually,” according to Living Wisdom Principal Kabir MacDow. The new high school will fulfill the University of California and California State University A-G requirements, and will abide by the Common Core curriculum. According to the Living Wisdom website, the school functions as an “alternative learning” school through the personalized learning that “provides real-world experience through volunteering, internships, in-depth study… resulting in a meaningful, adventurefilled, journey of self-discovery.” Living Wisdom schools were first created in the early seventies in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. The program was originally established by Ananda, a spiritual community. However,
in the 1990s, the schools adopted a different philosophy and became less affiliated with the organization. MacDow came to Living Wisdom in 1977, and was a teacher at the Sierra Nevada site for eight years. Since then, Living Wisdom has expanded into multiple sites, including Seattle, Portland and Nevada City. MacDow explained that personalized learning can only be accomplished with small class sizes. As a result, Living Wisdom will only accept 15 to 20 students in the fall. In an earlier interview with Palo Alto Online, MacDow stated that he hopes for 80 to 100 students to participate in the fourth year of the school’s existence, as well as a more permanent location. Living Wisdom will not only focus on the core subjects of math, science, language arts and social studies,
LIVING WISDOM
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INSIDE
Ne w s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A 1 - A 4 O pi n i on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A 5 - A 8 Lifestyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1, B8 Stu d e nt i L i fe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B 2 Culture................................B3 Spotlight...............................B4-B5 StudentiInterest...................B6-B7 Sports..................................C1-C8
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ZIPPYLIPS/CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSED
OPINION
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SPORTS
Immigrant Outreach
Millennial Work Ethic
Trump’s Cabinet Picks
History of Title IX
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Santa Clara and San Mateo County officials hold forum for immigrants.
School values often do not translate to work experience.
The Campanile reviews Trump’s closest advisors.
Celebrating the legacy of the groundbreaking gender equality law.