Keeping families in the district is the theme as five candidates seek three Saratoga Union board seats

Holding on to students, and the families behind them, has become the common thread in the race for three seats on the Saratoga Union School District board, according to a Mercury News review of the candidates' forum remarks and interviews published Monday.

Five people are running at large in the Nov. 3 election: board president Eric Cao and trustee Vidya R. Vineet, both incumbents, and newcomers Anna Goldberg, Catalina Rupert and Farnoush Drexel. Trustee Cynthia Miller is not running again.

A smaller district

The district runs three elementary schools and one middle school and enrolled about 1,500 students last year, the paper reported, citing the California Board of Education. Citing Ballotpedia, it said total enrollment slid from roughly 2,400 in 1999 to about 1,600 in 2024.

Because Saratoga Union is funded mainly by local property taxes as a basic aid district, the paper noted, the decline has not hit its budget the way it has elsewhere in the Bay Area.

Goldberg, Drexel, Rupert and Vineet spoke at an online forum the League of Women Voters of Southwest Santa Clara Valley held Oct. 13. Cao did not take part.

What the candidates said

Rupert, a community advocate, said she wants to hear from families who have left or are thinking of leaving and to survey Saratoga preschools about where parents plan to send their children. She told the forum that some decline is inevitable demographically, but that the difference between those trends and actual enrollment shows what the district can influence.

She also wants social-emotional skills such as conflict resolution and emotional regulation built into school culture, with more counseling staff.

Goldberg, who has worked as a special education teacher and as an applied behavior analysis therapist, wants to invest in teaching in the classroom and in tiered systems of support for students whose needs differ. She also called for keeping teachers through professional development and protected planning time. "Let's make sure we can also support our teachers," she said.

Drexel, who previously worked as a lawyer and a dentist, said the district can keep high academic standards while still teaching coping skills and offering mental health support. "Academic rigor doesn't have to be in competing needs with mental health," she said.

Vineet's campaign website calls for pairing core academics with music, art, sports, hands-on science and STEAM. Cao, according to Ballotpedia, lists academic excellence, innovation and student achievement as his first priority, and he told the paper that academic and social-emotional needs are connected and should not be treated as separate agendas.

Neither Rupert nor Vineet immediately answered the paper's questions, it reported.

Sources

mercurynews.com