On July 6, 1925, the historic town of Mayfield —  along with California Avenue — was incorporated into Palo Alto, and the region later became known as Palo Alto’s “second downtown.” Downtown Palo Alto encompasses iconic locations such as the retro Palo Alto Creamery Fountain & Grill — formerly known as the Peninsula Creamery — the Museum of American Heritage Williams House and the Hewlett-Packard House and Garage, where tech giant HP was founded in 1939. 

South Palo Alto

South Palo Alto is home to residential areas and community centers, ranging from Eichler homes built in the 1960s to libraries such as the College Terrace Library and the Mitchell Park Library. Other key locations include the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center and Cubberley Community Center — formerly Cubberley High School, until it was closed in 1979 and later became a shared facility for PAUSD and various organizations and schools. Over the recent years, the south Palo Alto area has been attracting new residents due to its family-friendly, accessible community spaces. 

Points East/Baylands Area

In 1921, the City of Palo Alto purchased the John Fletcher Byxbee Recreation area (also known as the Baylands Nature Preserve), named after Stanford alumnus and Palo Alto city engineer Fletcher Byxbee. After the purchase, the 40 acres of the marshland was set to become a recreational area until the 1960s, when citizens advocated for a park instead. Over the years, the City has added the Nature Interpretive Center, Mundy Marsh, Renzel Wetlands and Byxbee Park Hills. Today, the preserve is a space for recreation, providing activities such as interpretive programs, water sports and golf. An area of undisturbed marshland remains. 

Stanford Area

In memory of their deceased son, Leland Stanford Jr., Leland and Jane Stanford founded Stanford University in 1885. Their 8,180-acre vineyard and farmland was transformed into the Stanford area, which overlaps the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe territory, and now includes the campus, Sand Hill Road, a portion of El Camino Real, Town & Country Village, Stanford Shopping Center and El Palo Alto Park. After her son’s and husband’s deaths, Jane Stanford continued to support the growth and development of the university area. 

University Avenue

Named by Palo Alto co-founder Timothy Hopkins in 1889, University Avenue extends directly to Stanford University’s Palm Drive. Several landmark buildings remain, including the Squire House, the Forbes Residence and the Stanford Theater — an architectural treasure known for its iconic marquee and lavish vintage furnishings. Over the years, businesses have been continuously established on University Avenue, and it continues to be an emblem of Palo Alto and its culture.

Lucie Stern Community Center area

Levi Strauss’ widowed wife and heiress Lucie Stern, also known as Palo Alto’s fairy godmother, established and financed community-center building projects nestled in the area north of Old Palo Alto in the corner between the intersection of Embarcadero Road and Middlefield Road. These include the Lucie Stern Community Center, Children’s Theater, Children’s Library and Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo. Other locations in the area include the Palo Alto Art Center — originally the City Hall — Christmas Tree Lane on Fulton Street, Duveneck Elementary School and the Rinconada Pool. The community-center area offers a place for families and friends to enjoy both educational and extracurricular activities.

The city’s abundant wealth and resources create a Palo Alto “bubble,” which often causes residents to be unaware of hardships that people from other areas experience: lack of resources, funding and a clean living environment.

Educational privileges

Palo Alto is known for its excellent public school system. According to Niche, all three Palo Alto Unified School District middle schools are among the 15 highest- ranked middle schools in California; Palo Alto High School is among the top 10 public high schools in California; and PAUSD is the best school district in America. Gunn itself is ranked first in California and 35th nationally among public schools, according to Niche. In addition, Gunn has high standardized-testing scores and a graduation rate of 94%, higher than the public school national average of 85%.

Gunn is able to provide its students with exceptional education largely through PAUSD funding. PAUSD is a basic-aid district, meaning that it receives funding from local property taxes in addition to basic-aid funding from the state of California. Partners in Education also works to raise money specifically for teacher salaries across the district. Altogether, PAUSD receives nearly $300 million each year to support students’ education, almost 90% of which come from local taxes.

Using these funds, Palo Alto provides educational resources such as Gizmos, Naviance and other applications, available in each student’s Rapid Identity portal. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, PAUSD spends approximately $25,000 to $26,000 per student every year, exceeding the national average of about $15,000 to $16,000.

These readily available funds give Gunn students access to a variety of resources and extracurricular activities. Junior Solyana Biadglegne, a transfer student from Leipzig, Germany, who moved to Palo Alto in November 2022, explained the disparity in resources between Gunn and her old school. “This place is just incredible — I think it’s obvious because it’s Palo Alto and Palo Alto is a rich city, but also there’s so many resources and opportunities for you,” she said. “At my old school, we had great teachers and a few clubs, but that was basically it.”

Gunn alumna Shauntel Lim, a freshman at Northwestern University, explained that the educational preparation and support that Gunn provided her made her college experience easier. “Within Palo Alto, we have access to good teachers, classes and extracurriculars, whereas I come here and I hear about (other) people’s high school experiences, and it definitely sounds harder where they’re living, where their schools are underfunded,” she said. “They definitely have to work harder on their own to reach the same amount of achievement (at Northwestern).”

Most of the resources PAUSD provides, such as Individualized Education Programs that ensure specialized instruction for students with disabilities, are state-mandated. However, history teacher Benjamin Beresford finds that Palo Alto often offers more than the minimum required by state mandates, such as co-teaching and the Academic Center, which has student tutors available to aid their peers. “At my previous school, which was very small, we didn’t really have all of these resources,” he said. “I had students who would have really benefited from the resources you could get at a public school like Gunn.”

Gunn students are instructed by a supportive and qualified teaching staff: Many teachers have pursued higher education, such as masters and doctorate degrees, further improving the quality of education in Palo Alto. PAUSD guidelines also require teachers to meet certain standards of accommodation and attention to students.

Environmental factors

Palo Alto, as a major center of technological innovation, is home to many of today’s most prominent, industry-leading corporations. Hundreds of startups have begun in Palo Alto, many started by alumni from nearby Stanford University, including Google and HP. According to data from Pitchbook, a venture-capital database, Stanford graduates have founded more startups and raised more venture-capital funding than graduates of any other university in the country over the past decade.

Many have moved to the city because of its reputation for technological excellence: Biadglegne’s parents relocated her family to Palo Alto for those very reasons. “Palo Alto and Silicon Valley are known for innovation and good schools, so education and jobs are the main reasons we came here,” she said. “We found everything we needed and wanted.”

Palo Alto also has shopping centers, restaurants and recreational spaces both in and around it. However, rising property values create high prices for foods and goods compared to other areas — one of the pitfalls of shopping in the city.

Since 2021, Palo Alto has been designated as a Gold-Level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicycles, and has plentiful communal amenities such as parks, playgrounds, libraries, and walking and biking trails. In 2021, only 15% of cities and towns in the U.S. received a Gold or Platinum designation. Although many take these facilities for granted, they greatly improve residents’ daily lives. For example, research from the Journal of Transport and Health found that people in more walkable environments had lower rates of obesity and chronic diseases. According to KRON4, Palo Alto residents have a 22% obesity rate, 11% lower than the national average of 33%.

Furthermore, Palo Alto’s natural environment is well maintained and healthy thanks to environmental services provided by the city. These services include Zero Waste, a waste-management system that seeks to decrease landfill waste and encourage composting; Watershed Protection, which reduces the amount of waste entering local waterways; and the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, an extensive strategy to reduce citywide carbon emissions in coming years. To receive funding for these services, Palo Alto has several community partners that provide financial support to the city, including Stanford University, Friends of the Junior Museum and Zoo, Palo Alto Arts Foundation and Neighbors Abroad.

Expectations

Living in a wealthy city replete with resources, Palo Alto residents, including students, can be isolated from the challenges that less wealthy communities face. However, mental burdens still exist. While — or perhaps because — Palo Alto is a center of technological innovation and excellence, students often feel pressure to succeed and surpass their peers academically. Biadglegne said the environment at Gunn is more competitive than that of her previous school. “At my old school, it was competitive, but it was also a small school,” she said. “Even if one had an accomplishment or internship, they would tell their friends to apply, and if someone has a big accomplishment, everyone celebrates it. But here, they (often) say, ‘Don’t tell that person I got an internship at this place.’”

This competition and pressure manifests itself most conspicuously during the college admissions process. Beresford noted that Gunn students often have high expectations to attend prestigious universities after high school. “There’s a culture that you’re expected to apply and go to some kind of elite (university) like the Ivy Leagues, or at least Berkeley, Stanford, University of Chicago,” he said.

As a result of this culture, students often become hyper-focused on their grades and test scores. “A student’s motivation to complete work is around getting a certain grade, not necessarily around completing an activity or understanding,” Beresford said. “As a teacher, it can feel like my intent for why I’m teaching you something feels different from (a student’s) reason for wanting to learn something.”

Additionally, with the abundance of engineering, computer science and science-based companies and opportunities present, students often face pressure to pursue and succeed in STEM-related fields. Gunn alumnus Michael Wang, a freshman at Brown University, said that if somebody mentioned that they were from Silicon Valley or the Bay Area at Brown, people would automatically assume that they planned to work in technology or computer science.

Palo Alto has established Wellness Centers and mental health resources to support students. Gunn has mental health professionals working on-site, as well as an established SELF program to aid students in social-emotional learning. The ability to create such resources is, in a way, yet another example of Palo Alto privilege: According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, during the 2021-22 school year, around half of public schools in the U.S. received funding for mental health services, and less than 41% of schools hired staff to focus on students’ mental health.

Ultimately, Lim believes many Gunn students are unaware of, or do not acknowledge, the privileges they possess. “It’s important to acknowledge problems (outside of our bubble),” she said. “(This includes) socioeconomic and racial problems. Living within the Palo Alto bubble, we don’t see a lot of that firsthand.”

This unique architecture that dominates southern Palo Alto was created by real estate developer Joseph Eichler. Though he first worked as a dairy businessman, living in a home designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright inspired him to think of ways he could bring modernist home elements to the general public. In 1949, he founded Eichler Homes Inc. and partnered with various architectural firms to deliver on this objective.

Eichler Homes Inc. marketed three key priorities: design, community and affordability. These concepts are best illustrated through Palo Alto’s Greenmeadow neighborhood, an area of the city bounded by Alma Street, East Charleston Road, Middlefield Road and San Antonio Road. There, Eichler sold homes featuring open floor plans, post-and-beam construction and clerestory windows—windows located at the top of a structure’s wall. When they were first introduced to the market in 1950, the homes were sold at a modest price of $17,000. They were also in close proximity to the Greenmeadow Community Center, which housed a pool and a clubhouse to host various events. According to Greenmeadow resident junior Naya Nebriaga, the community center continues to be an integral part of the neighborhood today. “Every weekend (there’s always) something going on,” she said. “They have barbeques, wine tastings for the adults and home renovation tip sessions.”

In many aspects, Eichler’s architectural legacy has endured the test of time: Out of the 2,700 Eichler homes originally built in Palo Alto, Atria Real Estate Founder Kevin Swartz estimates that roughly 2,000 of them still remain. Some Eichler owners, such as Nebriaga, have opted to modernize their homes to make them more suitable for 21st-century living. “When we moved, we had to redo all of the plumbing and electrical and add insulation to the walls,” she said. “This past summer, we also invested in HVAC units for all of the rooms.”

While renovations are oftentimes necessary, Eichler Network Director Marty Arbunich noted their potential to detract from the classic Eichler aesthetic. “Many remodels are off the mark, and this could be attributed to one key factor: not having a clear understanding of the architecture at the onset,” he wrote in an email. While remodeling their Eichler, Nebriaga’s family recognized this risk and ensured that the new changes would complement qualities such as the interior-exterior fluidity. “When we renovated the house, we made sure that the floorings were very similar to the outside concrete area, so that it was a seamless transition,” she said.

Along with Eichler’s architectural legacy, his community ideals still pertain today, according to Swartz. “The sense of community, parades and block parties are really unique to Eichler homes,” he said. “The people who are buying and living in these homes all love their Eichlers and have a common denominator between them. It’s a great asset to the neighborhood and families, being able to participate in that.” Nebriaga also enjoys the sense of community that owning an Eichler affords her. “Our neighbor next door wants to renovate, and they’re asking us questions on what to do because renovating an Eichler is different from renovating a regular home,” she said. “If I have a friend who lives in an Eichler, it’s also really cool to see their layout, because in a way, the houses are supposed to be very similar, but each one is super different depending on what they decided to do with the interior design.”

Despite their numerous benefits, Arbunich does not foresee similar community-oriented developments being built in the future. “In the Bay Area, we’ve simply run out of space to develop new tracts of any kind,” he said. “When Eichler was building in the postwar (period), there was plenty of available land, but so much of that has been filled over the past 60 to 70 years.”

Unlike design and community, Eichler’s third ideal of affordability has fallen short of maintaining a modern-day relevance. In February, the median sale price of a home in Greenmeadow was $1.97 million, over 10 times Eichler’s original asking price adjusted for inflation. According to freelance writer Bo Crane, Eichler’s reasonable asking prices facilitated racial integration in Palo Alto. “Eichler was the first local builder to proclaim that he favored selling houses to buyers of various racial and ethnic backgrounds,” he wrote in a Palo Alto Online article published in February. “The Greenmeadow tract welcomed Eichler’s first Black homebuyers.”

Although Eichler’s socially progressive values resonate with many, the Bay Area’s low housing supply and high demand have impeded their continued application. “I’ve heard many Eichler homeowners and buyers comment on how they were aligned with the history of how he was inclusive and wasn’t discriminating,” Swartz said. “But there are a lot of people who want to live in an Eichler, and they’re looking for where they could possibly afford one. The price is definitely a big barrier.”

Nevertheless, Arbunich believes that when it comes to fostering a strong sense of community, few neighborhoods can match Eichler neighborhoods’ camaraderie and cohesion. “Eichler owners are different in that regard,” he said. “It would take a lot of education and instilling pride in home ownership to build a (similar) support network behind most other communities.”

In addition to making incredible ice cream, Scoop Microcreamery is also environmentally friendly with compostable spoons, cups and napkins. Their generous opening hours are another reason to select this ice cream place, as it is open until 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends. It will definitely fulfill your sweet cravings, and it will be a cold and refreshing snack for hot days. Small businesses like Scoop Microcreamery make our big town feel like a small town because of its homey atmosphere and friendly employees. The next time you are in the area, support the local business by getting a scoop of whatever flavor catches your eye on the menu, or get the tried-and-true favorite: Brown Sugar Banana. The choice is up to you.

No, ‘twas not. It was a bird!

The majestic creature—later determined to be a California Gull, but can also be called the larus californicus if you want to sound smarter—soared high above me, its distinctive, sharp beak piercing through the air and its expansive gray feathers flapping in the wind. In fact, these seagulls have wingspans anywhere from 48 to 54 inches, and an overall length of 21 to 22 inches.

Recognized by their ear splitting huoh-huoh-huoh call, the seagulls have a diet that consists primarily of insects, rodents, fish, the eggs and young of other birds and garbage. So, to the eyes of these squawking birds, landfills and garbage bins are essentially sources of endless food supplies. Take a look around trash cans around Gunn’s campus, or anywhere that food is present, and you might just find a seagull about to dig into a yummy meal! Be careful, though: one impatient seagull once accidentally dropped a half-eaten ham sandwich on my head as I exited the batcave. 

These gulls, commonly associated with the beach, are mostly found along the coasts of the San Francisco Bay and are fortunately becoming more easy to spot. In fact, scientists recorded only 24 seagulls in the area in 1980; this number jumped to over 53,000 today. This increase may be the result of seagulls having decided that the levees of the bay were great to build nests and lay eggs. However, lately more gulls have been colliding with airplanes or swarming landfills and local neighborhoods.

So, be kind to our fellow seagulls, which can be found anywhere from Alcatraz Island, Union City to even the quads of Palo Alto schools. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the next lucky student to be ambushed with lunch leftovers.

One of the most notable changes is the expansion in space. “In our old lounge area, we [could] only really accommodate like eight to ten students comfortably, whereas now we [can fit] probably twenty,” wellness coordinator Genavae Pierre Dixon said. With more room, two additional couches have been added, as well as a larger resource library and a corner dedicated to sensory fidget toys. 

The decor and space aren’t the only new additions. The Wellness Team has added Counseling and Support Services for Youth (CASSY) therapist Emily Rubens and wellness outreach worker Rosie Castillo to their staff. “This is my first year here,” Castillo said. “And I really love the fact that even though [the] Wellness Center seems to bring a lot of the stuff that people are struggling with, at the same time we also have a lot of opportunities to see students in a really great way.”

The team has been adjusting well to the relocation, agreeing that the center’s greatest benefit to students is the privacy of the new hallway. According to Lead CASSY Site Therapist Michelle Ramos, students check in and wait in the lobby while the sessions take place in private rooms. The hallway in-between the two allows for a smoother transition to a student’s session, as well as a feeling of confidentiality. 

This helps create a better general atmosphere for students. “I like the flow that we have, the separation of the Wellness Center, and the privacy that [provides],” Ramos said.  “It helps with confidentiality for those students.” Unlike the open space of the previous center, the separation establishes boundaries, making students feel more secure.

Ramos commented that because of this, more students are willing to visit and check-in. “I’d like to think that it’s going to be much more welcoming,” she said.

The Wellness Team plans to utilize these changes and work towards new projects. Some ideas include a weekly Flex session to hold hands-on workshops such as stress ball making and group meditation. Another idea is to continue the Heart and Wellness group—which ran expressive arts sessions—last year and branch out to activities that take advantage of the bigger space. The team is also working towards creating a gardening club and organizing therapy dog visits.

Future goals have been set as well. Dixon and Ramos hope that this year, the Wellness Center can focus on low-level interventions: raising awareness around symptoms that might arrive before a crisis, and how to prevent them early on. “By the time we support a student, they’re already in full panic mode, which means we’re missing a big section of what can be done for them,” Dixon said. 

For her first year, Castillo hopes to raise awareness of mental health among parents and has worked with the outreach worker at Palo Alto High School to coordinate parent meetings and events. “Our students have really amazing insights,” said Castillo. “If we’re going to make some real change and make an actual impact on the wellness of our students, it’s really important to have the parents [contribute]. By doing that, we need to have them understand what it is that y’all are facing, because it’s a totally different perspective in a totally different world.”

To implement these new ideas, the Wellness Team is working with organizations such as the Children’s Health Council, Community Health Awareness Council, Adolescent Counseling Services and Parent Teacher Student Association, as well as the school psychologist and counselors to find the approach that works best for students. “I’m looking for therapeutic support that they might provide for the community,” Castillo said. “That way, I can link students and families to that support at their agencies.”

Castillo says that she has been impressed by the amount of knowledge that these organizations provide.  “[A] lot of people don’t do this for the money, because if they did they wouldn’t be here,” she said. “We all know that we’re on a team together. I think that’s the best part of it: the fact that nobody feels like that they’re doing it alone.”

The topic of the correlation between student course load and mental health, widely spoken of around PAUSD, was addressed through several questions and responses throughout the debate. School board candidate Ken Dauber, running for re-election, emphasized the importance of sleep in helping students remain academically and mentally balanced. “The wrong way to think about the relationship between student wellbeing and academic achievement is that we have to tradeoff one against the other. In fact, healthy, well-rested, happy students are good learners. I’m less interested in talking about balance than talking about how we can make our schools work better for our students,” Dauber said. One way Dauber believes that PAUSD can assist students is by removing zero period, which limits 250 students from getting the sleep he believes they need to succeed. Shounak Dharap, lawyer and Gunn alumnus, agrees with Dauber on this issue and believes that the district can and should do more to create a healthy learning environment for students. “One of the things we need to do is continue having frank discussions about mental health, about issues like weighted GPA and laning, things that don’t only implicate mental health but also equity, and continue having these discussions to make sure we are always building an environment that is going to support our students,” Dharap said. He is known to disapprove of weighted GPA and laning, two systems currently in place at PAUSD high schools, bringing to discussion their effects on students’ well-being and the amount of academic rigor instated at Gunn and Paly.

As the floor opened to Gunn and Paly publications for questions, Paly Voice reporter Nisha McNealis asked the candidates if they pledged to support student press freedom. All but one candidate, Kathy Jordan, pledged to support student journalists. Jordan’s disapproval of the Campanile’s report on the October 2016 sexual harassment case prompted the discussion of Ed Code 48907, a law which protects student press freedom. When asked if she would pledge, she began to discuss the limitations and laws regarding what the press is permitted to print. “You’re asking about freedom of the press and the student press, but press freedom is not absolute. The press has to maintain professional standards of journalism; the press cannot print just about anything. So, press freedom does have constraints placed upon it, and that is the purpose of Ed Code 48907,” Jordan said.

To end the debate, each candidate was given 30 seconds to differentiate themselves from their fellow candidates. Parent and active member of PAUSD Stacey Ashlund said that the time she spent in the community engaging in different groups and services gave her a knowledge of the district that differentiates herself from her competition. “One word: experience, personal as well as community experience. I’ve served on two cite councils, yes PiE advisory board, yes PTA council, and yes PTAs at all three of the schools that my children attended,” Ashlund said. Employing a completely different perspective, recent Paly graduate and Foothill College student Alex Scharf emphasized his first-hand knowledge about high school student life. “A lot of the problems that students have aren’t necessarily being talked about to their parents or teachers and they internalize a lot of their struggles,” Scharf said. As a recent high school student, he has experienced the hardships of high school students in the district, bringing a new point of view to the school board.

Palo Alto residents can vote for the two new school board members on Nov. 6 of this year. To learn more about each candidate and their stance on PAUSD issues, the full debate is on Palo Alto Online.