With the Mountain View-Whisman School District (MVWSD) facing a projected $8 million budget shortfall, four candidates for its Board of Trustees discussed district spending, student achievement and public trust during an Oct. 14 candidate forum.
Incumbents Devon Conley and Bill Lambert and challengers Quintin Riis and Sundar Subbarayan outlined their priorities ahead of the Nov. 3 election, which will determine who fills two board seats.
Conley pointed to changes she has pursued to strengthen financial oversight, including a new vendor-approval process, canceling $2.7 million in planned district-office renovations and establishing a budget advisory committee. She also made district credit card statements public.
As trustees weigh further cuts, Conley said school sites should help identify priorities. She said the district must reduce ongoing expenses rather than rely on reserves to cover the deficit.
Lambert made rebuilding community trust a priority. On academics, he stressed the importance of early literacy, saying students should be reading at grade level before third grade. He also cited enrollment trends as a challenge for long-term planning and efficient use of school facilities. On the budget, Lambert said the district should prioritize the needs of individual school sites and protect staff who work directly with students. He acknowledged that personnel cuts would likely be necessary.
Candidates discussed achievement gaps and findings from the district’s Orenda Education Study, an independent review of programs and services. Conley said the study identified weaknesses in assessment and data systems, program design, system alignment and an overload of initiatives. She described district efforts to address those findings, including developing its own assessments, setting districtwide instructional standards, protecting core instructional time and creating a new strategic plan. She said COVID-era spending coincided with a surge of initiatives that crowded the school day. The district has since worked to realign schedules and protect time for core instruction.
Riis called for reviewing administrative spending while restoring learning opportunities for students. He highlighted consultant costs and district-office salaries. He also said teacher pay should be high enough for educators to afford to live in Mountain View. To expand academic options, he proposed more hands-on learning, such as shop classes and maker spaces, along with the restoration of gifted education for high-achieving students. He also warned against excessive classroom screen time.
Subbarayan urged trustees to examine vendor contracts more closely and improve reporting on which district programs are effective. He said broad performance categories can obscure changes in individual students’ achievement and favored more precise measures of student progress. He also described artificial intelligence as a potential tool to help teachers tailor instruction to students’ needs.
Candidates also differed in their approaches to family outreach. Riis proposed translating important communications, including field-trip permission slips and emails, into Spanish. Conley said the district already provides translation services and has a Spanish-speaking engagement facilitator at each school, but added that parent-to-parent connections could strengthen outreach. Lambert suggested drawing on Spanish-speaking teachers and staff to connect with families and encouraging schools to bring parents together. Subbarayan, meanwhile, proposed recruiting community representatives to help reach families whose voices are less often heard.
The forum was hosted by the Los Altos-Mountain View League of Women Voters, co-sponsored by KMVT and livestreamed.
