There are two trustee seats up for grabs in the Cupertino Union School District on Nov. 3. There are five seats on the board and Sylvia Leong is the only incumbent looking for re-election. Leong’s challengers include Rimi Khan, Doug Kunz, Lakshmi Sharma, Long Jiao and Nisar Ali.
The election comes at a time when the district faces enrollment decreases and closures of three elementary schools. The new board members, if elected, must work together to find ways to balance enrollment at the current elementary and middle schools and to retain their teachers with limited resources.
Other initiatives the district is looking into are increasing technology in the classroom, investing in more mental health programs and building new environmental infrastructure.
Below, five of the six candidates spoke with the Town Crier through Zoom and in-person interviews to address the district’s long-term issues. The Town Crier was unable to reach candidate Nisar Ali after several attempts.
Long Jiao
Long Jiao is running for a seat on the board to keep students from leaving the districts and to increase technology in the classroom. Jiao is a parent to two students in the district – one a current fourth grader and the other a former high school student who just went off to college. Jiao has leadership experience working as an Awana leader for over 10 years with his local church and currently works in the technology industry as a software engineer.
Jiao said if elected, he hopes to close the communication gap with the district’s budget. He said he noticed there were solar panels installed in the district and many neighbors complained about it. Jiao said as a member of the community, he did not hear any public information regarding the project. He said the school closures also happened “really fast” and said many people were upset with how it was handled by the district.
Long Jiao
Jiao also believes the school district has the potential for more STEM courses. Jiao added that although teachers are stronger at CUSD, he believes students are leaving the district for private and alternative schools. He said the district can improve by taking advantage of new technologies.
“There are a lot of new experiments in the classroom,” Jiao said. “A student can take a lecture on their own and do homework in the classroom. With new AI technology, it creates a lot of personalized learning that will benefit children.”
For more information on Jiao’s campaign, visit longforcusd.com/.
Rimi Khan
Rimi Khan is running for a seat on the board to bring communities together and to involve more parents in board decisions. Khan’s children are current students in the district and she has participated in the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) at her children’s school. She said the board was a natural progression for her to advocate for students and teachers.
Khan said if elected, she hopes to have all teachers and students be met with their basic needs. She wants to see where the district’s funding is coming from and be able to allocate resources that will assist with community safety and well-being.
Rimi Khan
Khan said she is very familiar with connecting with people through her positions in the technology industry and her passion as a stand-up comedian. Khan said having a diverse career background and participation in school committees allowed her to not just advocate for academic intelligence but also emotional intelligence.
“I am good at bringing communities together and de-escalating conflict,” Khan said. “Inclusion and equity are all really important to me. I am a parent, a member of the community and the PTO co-director. I understand the needs of the community and I am ready to fight for that.”
Doug Kunz
Doug Kunz has hopes of stabilizing the district’s funding and focus on their environmental efficiencies. Kunz’s children were previous students of the district, and Kunz participated in in leadership roles with the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and Scouts of America and was a former member of the city of Sunnyvale’s Sustainability Commission. He said it is important to have diverse community perspectives throughout the board’s decisions.
Kunz said if elected, he hopes for the district to phase out gas emissions in a planned way. He hopes to install electric technologies that are zero-emission when something needs to be replaced. Kunz said all the decisions the board makes should make sense within the means of their budget and not take away from education.
Doug Kunz
Kunz said he is also moderating how the school closures are affecting the district and how the decline of students is affecting their budget. He believes the district is making “positive steps” in making the civic process open for people and hopes to be a part of the board to make difficult conversations more accessible.
“Education should not just be about how many facts are in a student’s head,” Kunz said. “It is about the joy of learning and helping students grow up into healthy, well-adjusted adults who give back to their community. The district has an equitable way of setting goals of not just using test scores but defining ways of creating a holistic education and producing engaged, well-informed citizens that we all want.”
For more information on Kunz’s campaign, visit kunzforcusd.com/.
Sylvia Leong
Sylvia Leong is running to retain her seat for the third time since 2019. Leong said that she has been through the biggest changes in the district through COVID-19 and having to make the difficult decisions regarding school closures.
Leong said she puts people before the properties. She said since the downsize of schools in 2022 and 2023, there have been improvements in the classrooms by creating many more resources for teachers and giving them the option of where they wanted to teach. Leong understood the stress at the time for the community members with having to switch schools, but there was a sense of community understanding regarding school closures. She said the district is in a good place financially now.
Sylvia Leong
Leong hopes to also continue advocating for mental health programs for students. She said in the last year, the board created an initiative called “A Sense of Belonging” for students to get involved with the community and make positive changes among peers. Leong said in the post-pandemic world, there is an epidemic of loneliness among students. She said the program is a way to measure student growth and see how they are performing through their projects.
“Every other board meeting, we have students come from each of our schools and tell us what they are doing to create a sense of belonging on campus,” Leong said. “It is awesome. You get to see them do simple things like recess buddy, friendship bench or gardening club. The middle schools are also doing things like podcasts, leadership programs or pairing off with our special needs students.”
To learn more about Leong’s campaign, visit sylvia4cusd.com/.
Lakshmi Sharma
Lakshmi Sharma is running for a seat on the board to make campuses safer and have the school districts do more for English as a second language learners. Sharma said her kids have gone through the elementary and middle school in the district and her involvement with the district began as a classroom coach by supporting teachers with student reading development. Sharma said she enrolled in community leadership courses for over 10 years and has been active on company boards.
Lakshmi Sharma
Sharma said if elected, she would make safety a priority. She said she would like to create compressive safety routes for students and address how cyberbullying and cyberattacks should be handled in the district. She said there is pressure for new safety plans since the school closures.
Sharma said being an immigrant and learning English after moving to the United States, English as a second language learners and faculty should have more investments in CUSD. She said there is an anxiety for immigrants in public schools and by joining the board, it will help her give back to communities in a way public education helped her.
“I wish within the school structure we could provide more support for non-English-speaking faculty and students,” Sharma said. “My kids went to public school; they are in the UC system. I am a huge believer in public schools. As an immigrant, and if you don’t speak English here, you feel anxiety. I would like to see what has been done already and what could be done.”
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