Palo Alto parent Alan Crystal filed a Brown Act complaint against the Palo Alto Board of Education on Feb. 21. Crystal said the board has 30 days from the initial filing to respond — otherwise, the Santa Clara District Attorney’s office may step in to investigate and potentially force a revote.
The complaint alleges board members committed at least two Brown Act violations related to the Jan. 23 special board meeting and an action item to “approve the Palo Alto Unified School District Ethnic Studies course as presented for the 2025-26 school year” and “confirm that completion of Ethnic Studies will remain a graduation requirement beginning with the Class of 2029 as established by the Board of Education on September 12, 2023, regardless of a state mandate triggered by funding.”
The first complaint cites California Government Code § 54954.2 (a)(1) and (a)(3) as violated laws — schools boards are prohibited from taking action on “any item not appearing on the posted agenda,” and agendas must contain “a brief general description of each item of business to be transacted.” In an interview with The Campanile, Crystal said the board misled the public because the original vote in 2023 was to approve the graduation requirement for the class of 2030, not 2029.
“What they ended up voting for was essentially to put in a new date for the mandate of the class,” Crystal said. “The last board had approved that there would be a requirement for the class of 2030 whereas what was ended up voted on was for the class of 2029, which was both in the agenda and when President Segal presented the vote. She said that if the board were to vote again, to vote against the curriculum, that essentially, they would be overturning the mandate, which was not the case at all.”
While the Jan. 23 board meeting agenda cites the Sept. 12, 2023 board meeting as the meeting where the board voted to approve the graduation requirement, the September board meeting only included a discussion item regarding ethnic studies.
Jennifer DiBrienza, the board president during the initial 2023 vote, said the board agreed to require ethnic studies for the class of 2029 during the September meeting but did not actually vote on the requirement.
“The question posed to us was, ‘Should we implement it for the class of 2028, 2029 or 2030?’” DiBrienza said. “A majority of the board said we’d like to do 2028 but ‘Hey, staff, if you’re telling us that the class of 2029 is more reasonable for you … that’s fine. We’ll accept that 2030 is too late for us.’ There was no vote taken there, but clearly the majority of the board showed an interest in either 2028 or 2029.”
The 2023 vote was instead held on Oct. 11, 2023 during the approval of Board Policy 6146.1 in the Consent Calendar, which said “beginning with the 2029-30 school year, a student (must complete) a one-semester course in ethnic studies to graduate from high school.”
DiBrienza said the board voted 5-0 to approve the requirement for the class of 2030 but assumed the year in BP 6146.1 was referring to the 2028-29 school year.
“I always read the Consent Calendar all the way through,” DiBrienza said. “I don’t know how I missed that. In fact, I may have been on the Board Policy Review Committee and have reviewed the policy, so I don’t really know how that got past me. The board made in September of 2023 that their intention was to make it a requirement for the class of 2028 or for the class of 2029. Then, the next meeting, on consent, we updated the board policy that had a lot of changes on it, and that people had been working on for months. What I believe happened was that months earlier, that had been put in as a placeholder — when they were talking about ethnic studies, the state law said that it was mandated by the class of 2030 … So when they were drafting that policy, and they were making various changes to the graduation requirements, they stuck that in there … and then in September, we had this discussion where we said 2028 or 2029, and that document didn’t get updated to reflect that, and we missed it.”
Since the PAUSD website and the Jan. 23 board meeting agenda also mistakenly indicated that the ethnic studies requirement applied to the class of 2029, and not the class of 2030, board Vice President Shounak Dharap said during the Jan. 23 board meeting the original vote from 2023 was for the class of 2029.
“My understanding is if we don’t do anything on the mandate then nothing changes,” Dharap said during the meeting. “That is to say, the board last year voted to impose a graduation mandate for the graduating class of 2029, so doing nothing means that that mandate exists, so in order to change that, I believe folks would have to move to overturn the last board’s decision … When a body votes to break its promise, to overturn a policy, there are usually very strong overriding reasons why that’s the case — things have changed, the circumstances are different, there’s new information … What I am really keen on is why overturn an existing policy?”
Dharap said he cannot comment on the Brown Act complaint. He said only the board president and superintendent can.
Board President Shana Segal did not immediately respond to requests for an interview but reiterated Dharap’s claims during the meeting.
“Previously, Mr. Dharap and I were on the board, and we approved ethnic studies, and we modified board policy to reflect that ethnic studies would be required … starting with the graduating class of 2029, so thus starting fall 2025 freshman class,” Segal said during the meeting.
Crystal said board member Josh Salcman’s deciding vote in favor of requiring ethnic studies for the class of 2029 was influenced by the assumption that voting against the requirement for the class of 2029 would be reversing a previously approved mandate.
Salcman did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.
Crystal also said the board violated California Government Code Sections § 54952.2(b)(1) and 54953 — “a majority of the members … shall not, outside a meeting authorized by this chapter, use a series of communications … to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative.”
Prior to the Jan. 23 board meeting, according to the complaint, “Segal partnered on the Ethnic Studies course … approval with Trustee Salcman. President Segal also had substantive discussions on this matter with Vice President Dharap since the two are members of the agenda setting committee.”
And in an interview with The Campanile on Feb. 5, Superintendent Don Austin said he met with Segal and Dharap after the removal of state funding for ethnic studies.
“I asked our board president and vice president to meet with me and shared the information with them,” Austin said. “I recommended pulling (ethnic studies from the agenda), and in our case the president has final say …(so) we had an agreement (to pull it). Shortly after, (Segal) called me back and said that she’d like it agendized.”
Austin did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.
The third alleged violation stems from allegations that the district did not respond to Public Records Act requests within the legally required timeframe. According to the California School Boards Association, within 10 days from receiving a PRA request, the district must “make a determination whether the request, in whole or in part, seeks disclosable records in the district’s possession, and promptly notify the requester.”
The PAUSD parent who filed the PRA and who requested anonymity due to the already heightened tension around these issues said they sent their first request by email on Oct. 17 to PAUSD Manager of Policy & Legal Compliance Amanda Bark. They requested “all course outlines, lessons, content, instructional materials and Google folders assembled for PAUSD’s Fall 2024 Ethnic Studies course.”
On Oct. 29, this parent officially filed the PRA request on the district website and received an automatic response. They followed up on the request on Nov. 11 and sent an additional note on Nov. 19. They said they then went in-person to the district office to check on the request because the district had not responded within the required 10 days. On Nov. 20, 22 days after the first official PRA request, Bark sent the parent documents from the existing ethnic studies elective and said there was no pilot course.
After the parent continued to follow up with their request, they said they received a response on Nov. 29 where the district said they were exempt from providing the materials the parent was requesting because all the material they had were preliminary drafts. However, after further exchanges, on Dec. 19, just before the break, Bark sent the parent the Scope and Sequence Calendar for ethnic studies in a PDF format that had no links to content. Although the parent said they immediately pointed this out to Bark in hopes of getting the links before the winter break, they were informed on Jan. 15 that PAUSD would instead assemble the rest of the documents in PDF format and that it would take a few weeks to do so due to staff shortages.
The parent said they didn’t receive any further materials until Jan. 22, the day the board agenda for the ethnic studies special meeting was released to the public. On Jan. 22, they received the Scope and Sequence document with updated links, which was instead confirmed to be a year-old brainstorming document at the Jan. 23 board meeting.
In response to these three complaints, Crystal said he thinks community members will voice their concerns at the next board meeting.
“I think at the March 11 meeting, we can have that opportunity to revisit this in a calm and deliberate manner and give the teachers a chance to refine the class that they have and communicate in more detail to everyone about what the class content is,” Crystal said. “Once we go through a process where we can actually see what’s being proposed and have a chance to perhaps modify or enhance it if it needs adjustments, then when it comes to a vote and it’s a decision for the board to make, they can do it in a way that really feels transparent and fair as opposed to one where it feels like it’s been rushed for no apparent purpose.”
Board member Rowena Chiu said in an email to The Campanile she was not aware of the Brown Act filing. Board member Alison Kamhi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This is a developing story. We will continue to update this post as more information becomes available.