Demand for private schools is up. Has public opinion followed suit?

Bay Meadows residents share experiences in public and private schools

STORY Isabella X. ART Jodie C.

For a class assignment, small teams of The Nueva Current staff headed out into the Bay Meadows development to investigate locals’ stances on a single question. This issue shares their interviewing findings for the following question: “What is your opinion on private schools?”

Adam Kurland

Adam Kurland contemplated sending his daughters to a private school, but ultimately decided that the financial cost was too great. He himself attended a magnet high school in the suburbs of New York City and now has two daughters at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, just an 11-minute drive from Nueva’s upper school campus.

According to Kurland, the girls were nearly navy and gold knights at Menlo School, a private school in Menlo Park, but “the differential in price—55,000 versus basically nothing—just wasn’t worth it” to them.

Kurland adds, however, that the Bay Area is uniquely privileged in its quality of public education.

“In some neighborhoods, private schools are completely necessary,” he said. “In New York, for example, if you want your kids to get a decent education, you have to send them to a private school.” believes that while

the top students”

Bay Area public schools that the

“At the end of the day, you get said. “Private and public schools are both valid choices based on what experience parents want for

Four strangers—nestled inside Bay Meadow’s Blue Bottle, waiting in line for a cup of coffee, visiting San Mateo for a doctor's appointment, and journaling at a local outdoor brewpub—each took ten minutes out of their day to chat about their stances on private schools.

Since the pandemic, 55 percent of American private schools have seen an increase in applicants, according to a December 2022 CATO Institute survey. The

Emma Rocha

Emma Rocha, now a part-time barista in her mid-twenties, reflected upon her experience in the public school system as a student with then-undiagnosed dyslexia.

She recalls sitting in the back of the classroom, and counting how many more credits she needed to graduate in the spring. As long as she kept her head down and worked to “stay afloat,” she could make it.

“I never considered myself an academic person,” Rocha admitted.

In high school, she could always be found in the weight room or signing up for P.E. classes. When it came to homework assignments, however, her teachers labeled her as “lazy” instead of “realizing that [she] didn’t know how to reach out for support.”

“I think what happens in the American education system is that you’re able to fly under the radar, even if you’re doing relatively poorly,” Rocha said. “I ended up getting on stage and just barely graduating with Ds in most classes, but it was so hard.”

For Rocha, the private school system was never even an option.

“Public school always was the default,” she said. “Coming from a relatively poor background, it’s hard not to think of private schools as unfair. But I guess that’s just how the world works.” average increase was 10 students, around a five percent increase from the 2019–2020 average.

At Nueva, the admissions office reports a 26 percent increase in applicants (from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade) from the 2019-2020 to 2021-2022 school year, and a projected 53 percent increase from 20192020 to 2023-2024, surpassing larger national trends.

Melanie Leon, PreK-12 Director of

Sandy Woodruff, a designer passing through Bay Meadows after a doctor's appointment, noted the differences between her public high school education and her younger brother’s private education.

Located in New York, Woodruff’s school had a graduating class of upwards of 800. Despite taking mostly AP and honors classes, Woodruff noted that her school’s lack of funding often made her feel she was “just tossed into the deep end.”

So when her parents chose to send her younger brother to a private school, she wasn’t surprised.

“I always questioned their decision because it was expensive and more sheltered than my high school experience,” Woodruff said. “But ultimately, it ended up being right for him precisely because of the more controlled environment. He was able to get the one-on-one attention I lacked.”

Having witnessed both educational systems, Woodruff believes private and public school zoning laws create disparities in opportunities.

“It’s crazy your wealth and where you live can have such a huge impact on your family’s future,” Woodruff said. “Sometimes I wonder what I could’ve accomplished if I’d had the same private school education as my brother.”

Admissions, accredits this increase in popularity to independent schools’ greater resources to support students virtually, as well as a higher rating on Niche, a thirdparty school rating website.

“If I had a crystal ball, I’d say our application rates are going to continue rising,” Leon said. “Our numbers are showing that we’re not done yet.”

Outside of the private school bubble, however, stances on private schools vary.

Lisa Ellis

Bundled up in a thick coat and cradling a pomeranian on her lap, Lisa Ellis has seen her family tread through both walks of life, with grandchildren in both public and private school.

Ellis grew up in the public school system, and due to her brother working as a public school teacher for 65 years, she maintained a close proximity to it throughout her adult life.

“Don’t get me wrong—I got a great education from my public schools. But I’ve also seen firsthand how underfunded public schools are and how underpaid the teachers are,” Ellis said.

These financial issues, Ellis believes, are only worsening. She credits it to parents noticing a “gap in quality of education” between public and private schools, and “going towards what’s easier” by choosing to attend the better-funded private programs instead of donating to public schools.

“The smaller classes that my grandkids have been able to attend at their private schools have been wonderful, and I’m so glad they have that opportunity,” Ellis said.

“However, it’s a shame that public schools have been neglected in the process.”

Community unites in wake of heavy storms

Nueva community members recover after a costly onslaught of rain, wind, and landslides

When upper school chemistry teacher Jeremy Jacquot, his wife, and his two dogs got back to their home in Bayview, San Francisco, it was 1 p.m. The rain had been heavy on the freeway there, but they hadn't given it much thought. It wasn't until they turned the corner to get to their block that they saw the fire trucks. That’s when they began to panic.

“I think they were just about to try to force their way into our home because we were away and nobody was there,” Jacquot said.

He had been in Southern California for a week-long vacation over the winter break. It was New Year’s Eve, and that morning, Jacquot had received a small alert from the water sensor in their garage. He ignored it, assuming that only a small amount of rain had gotten inside.

After seeing the fire trucks, the couple put the car in the driveway and ran into their home. Then they saw the water. As soon as they opened up the garage door, it came flooding out. There was a waterfall coming down the first floor, and the garage held over two inches of water.

Jacquot is one of the thousands of Bay Area residents struggling to cope with the aftermath of the powerful "atmospheric rivers" that swept through California from late December to mid-January. The storms brought widespread flooding, landslides, wind, and even a sinkhole that shut down Highway 92. For Jacquot and many others, support from their communities, both at Nueva and at home, was vital in recovery efforts as the storms slowly stopped.

Upper school English teacher Pearl Bauer was driving home to Half Moon Bay on Tuesday, Jan. 12, when she was suddenly rerouted through Woodside. It took her two and a half hours to get home on what was usually a 25-minute commute.

When she arrived, she discovered that the reason she hadn't been able to take her usual route was a sinkhole that had opened up on Highway 92. It took another two hours to get to school the next day, and Bauer ended up missing her morning classes. Since then, she has had to leave her home at 7 a.m. to get to school.

“After the baggage of getting home, we started getting the news, and I saw the pictures and the videos of the sinkhole,” Bauer said. “It was a really scary thing.”

As the new school year began, Bauer found it difficult to deal with the emotional strain of her commute. Jacquot felt similarly divided at times, juggling lesson planning with talking to neighbors, visiting his house, and trashing damaged belongings.

Both teachers expressed gratitude to members of their community who, according to Bauer, were "really nice" in offering places to stay and other forms of assistance.

“It has been a silver lining to feel that sense of community and dependence. I may not be at my house right now, but I know that my neighbors are there, they'll keep an eye on things and vice versa,” said Jacquot. “We can rely on each other.”

Upper school math teacher Veena Krishnan was also affected by the downpour when the storm drains in her condo failed to clear water quickly enough to stop flooding. Like Jacquot, Krishnan knew of the upcoming storms but expected, at worst, that her garage would get a little wet. When she got home on New Year’s Eve, her garage was fine, but the house was flooded.

“A lot of the houses in the condo that I live in, especially the ones on the lower level, sustained catastrophic damage,” Krishnan said.

Krishnan said that having help from Nueva teachers and administration helped ease some of the burdens of the stressful and traumatic situation. At some point, she said, she just wanted somebody to know what had happened to her.

“Just having empathy from both my students and the faculty and staff has been super useful. It’s nice to know that somebody is listening to you,” Krishnan said. “We've been lucky to not feel isolated and alone in this situation.”

Fine dining has gone to the dogs…literally San Francisco’s dog restaurant emphasizes quality raw food

Customers peek their heads through the front doors, their faces brimming with bright enthusiasm. They can smell a treat waiting for them inside. Maybe two.

Then suddenly they’re pulled back, their looks of excitement dimming ever so slightly. The customers back up, dejected. Their owners want them to continue walking.

They just passed Dogue, a fine-dining restaurant on Valencia

Francisco. The customers? Canines. Dogue began as a “selfish desire” to ensure that Grizzly, the first mastiff of Rahmi and Ally Massarweh, lived as long as possible.

“[Grizzly] is the seed that grew into the tree we call Dogue that changed our lives forever,” the couple wrote on the Dogue website. Dogue means “mastiff” in French, referencing Grizzly and Rahmi’s training in classical French cuisine.

Every Sunday since September 2022, Dogue hosts the Bone Apétit café, where they offer multi-course dog meals for $75 while jazz plays softly overhead. The raw food, exquisitely presented, has quail egg, organic chicken, venison, antelope heart, sardines, and more, almost entirely sourced from California. During the week, Dogue is open for purchases of packaged treats, custom meal plans,

Preparing fresh food for their dogs was originally just for fun. At the time, the couple ran Paw Prints Family, a doggie day care service. The infrequent birthday cakes transformed into regular raw meals for their own pups—after extensive research on dog nutrition—12 years ago.

“If you think about it logically for a moment, if your diet was heavy on the processed, bagged, shelf food,” Rahmi said, “we wouldn’t live a very healthy lifestyle.”

Rahmi carries that logic to animals: “It’s a fundamental knowledge that real food is better.”

After persistent interest from clients and with more time on his hands, Rahmi began to sell personalized meals to Paw Prints Family members around 2015.

When Rahmi transitioned from feeding human clientele to their furry friends, his main challenge was ensuring he met dogs’ nutritional needs.

Describing a Venn diagram of human and dogs’ nutritional needs, Rahmi said the intersection is his “playground.” He attempts to please both the client and its owner with fresh food and creative presentations.

“We’re not thinking that dogs need to be eating Michelin star,” Ally said. “The bigger idea is to really think about what we’re feeding our dogs. Are you going to do something like this, and then go home and just pour a box of kibble? Maybe not.”

To Ally, the point is not pretentiousness nor high prices (although the couple mentioned that a similar meal for a human would likely be double the $75 price); instead, Dogue intends to emphasize the quality of fresh food and handmade bowls and leashes made by small businesses.

“Having no one that’s done this before makes it a little tough to see what’s down the tunnel,” Rahmi said. “We’re taking things as they come and trying to move forward as we go along.”

Despite setbacks and difficulties, Rahmi and Ally aim to continue “changing as many animal lives as [they] can, one plate at a time.” They have felt substantial support and love from the community.

“It’s a happy place,” Ally said. “People always come in smiling.” handmade bowls, leashes, and pastries.

Creating Dogue was not the intial plan for Ally and Rahmi. After years working as an executive chef, Rahmi felt burned out. He had been working 18 hour days and missing holidays. When he left the restaurant industry, he turned to his other passion: caring for dogs.

“If I were a painter, I would have probably painted portraits of my dogs and tried to sell them. If I were a carpenter, I would have tried to build them houses or dog beds and tried to sell that,” he said. “I’m a chef, so I cook.”