This agreement will be voted on by the teachers’ union from May 13 to 17 and the result will be announced on May 17. It has also been added to the agenda for the upcoming school board meeting on May 21 to be discussed by the district officials and school board members, where the entire contract is slated to be ratified.

Every year, PAUSD negotiates new terms with PAEA, which represents the certified staff such as teachers, and California School Employees Association Chapter 301, which represents the classified staff such as aides and custodians. Usually in this district, negotiations end in an agreement after early discussions. However, this year, the district and union could not come to a compromise after initial negotiations, setting the precedent for the first impasse between PAUSD and PAEA.

A closer look at the numbers

The original proposal by PAEA included an 8% increase from the 2022-23 teacher’s salary which was responded with 2% counteroffer from PAUSD. PAEA’s best and final offer was 5.5% which is 2% higher than PAUSD’s final offer of 3.5%. The tentative agreement reached on May 6 proposes a 4% increase for this year.

According to PAEA’s website, PAUSD has significantly lower salary growth and maximum salaries than neighboring districts. Going into this year’s negotiations, PAUSD’s salary growth from 2021 to 2024 was 10.2%, compared to the 15.8% increase in the Mountain View and Los Altos district, the 15.8% increase in the Los Gatos and Saratoga districts, and the 19.0% increase in the Santa Clara School District. If the tentative agreement is approved, PAUSD’s salary increase would become 15.2% for this year.

PAUSD’s current maximum salary is $154,366, which is 24.8% lower than Mountain View-Los Altos School District, 9.8% lower than Fremont Union High School District and 7.1% lower than Santa Clara Unified School District. PAEA President Teri Baldwin stressed that this gap plays a significant role in communicating the value of teachers.

“We always want our community to know that we are trying to recruit and retain the best teachers for our students, and we’re falling behind in salary in the area,” Baldwin said. “If we’re the number one district, we should be the number one or at least close to the number one in salary in the area.”

Beginnings of negotiations

In the context of these district negotiations, the impasse was prompted by a disagreement from PAUSD and PAEA’s final offers regarding the teacher’s contract for the 2024-25 school year. As a result, a third-party mediator stepped in to aid both sides to come to an agreement. The mediator assigned to this case was from the California Public Employment Relations Board. According to Superintendent Don Austin and Baldwin, both negotiation teams are separated and the mediator worked with both parties to reach an agreement.

The negotiations cover a variety of topics including class size, working conditions, evaluations, and salary — the subject cultivating the most discourse. The negotiations, which happen every year between PAUSD and PAEA, are not open the public. This year, the union and district called for an impasse, prolonging the negotiations for another six months.A the school board meeting on April 23, PAEA members expressed dissatisfaction during the open forum about the PAUSD salary schedule, and their experiences in the district. CSEA 301 Chapter President Mrigendra Steiner announced CSEA’s alliance with PAEA in hopes for a quick resolution of the negotiations that honors the professionality of the teachers. Retiring Gunn math teacher Kathy Hawes spoke about her 32 years at Gunn and the salary gap between MVLA and PAUSD.

“I’m concerned that people aren’t going to stay (in PAUSD) because (I talked to) my good friend who left for MVLA, and if I was there now I’d be making 37 thousand more a year,” she said in the meeting. “I love my department, I love my collaboration, I love the people I work with, but at some point I have to think about what would that $37,000 do for my retirement? What would that do for my cost of living? Can I afford to keep working in Palo Alto? And if we lose our experienced staff, how are we going to keep our traditions, culture and history?”

Teacher librarian Daljeet Gill also compared his current position to a higher salary at MVLA, but decided to stay at Gunn because of his long term affection for the school. In his opinion, the negotiations are not just about money but about convincing teachers to stay.

“If all we cared about was money, none of us would be in education,” he said. “The people that I see on campus, this staff, is incredible. They do so much for students that go above and beyond. But the more the pay gap increases, (the more that) you don’t necessarily feel like you’re able to do these things (for the students and) support yourself and your family as easily. Maybe there’s a little bit of not feeling as valued, and that maybe you’re more valued somewhere else.”

PAUSD Budget Reserves

A popular solution suggested by the teachers union is to pull from the district’s large reserves to fund a salary increase since PAUSD does not have an upper limit on the reserves, and its size has increased 187% since 2021, currently containing $135 million. According to the district website, PAUSD’s $135 million reserve is 34% of its operating budget, which is two times more than the 17% recommended by experts. PAEA members made the argument that a fraction of these funds can be allocated towards teachers’ salaries. However, according to Austin, drawing money from the reserve is not as simple or advisable as it may seem.

Austin likens the reserve to a savings account, asserting that regularly drawing from it for an ongoing expense is unsustainable because it won’t replenish itself if the district spends at a deficit from relying on the reserve. PAUSD Chief Business Officer Carolyn Chow provided an example for this analogy, explaining that the reserve is used for one-time costs and budgeted purchases.

“In your savings account, you might have to (pay for) a new washer and dryer, tuition for college and a vacation, right?” she said. “Once you spend it, it’s gone, you have to resave again. So in our case, we have a whole list of things that are in the reserves. So for example, we have textbook adoptions that don’t come up every year but we have to set aside money for so in our budget, maybe every five or 10 years we try to save up for it.”

PAEA negotiations team member and Gunn economics teacher Jeff Patrick agrees that it is unwise to use the reserve funds for an indefinite amount of time, but he thinks that the analogy of a savings account isn’t accurate to this situation.

“I think it’s a sort of disingenuous analogy given that the district’s not saving that money for retirement or college expenses, whatever it is that families typically save money for,” he said. “So we further don’t understand, and I would say have not been adequately given an explanation of why the district continues to expand that reserve over time.”

Patrick thinks that regardless of how the reserve is spent, the important next step is to address how much money is being added to it.

“In my personal view, and this is reflected by a lot of people that I’ve talked to about it, (it’s like), ‘Fine, you’ve got the reserve and it is what it is, let’s (just) stop making it bigger,’” he said. “So (going forward) making sure that any surplus money that the district has gets put into compensation or something that’s going to directly affect students rather than to sit in the reserves.”

Public Reception

Throughout the negotiation process, PAEA has aimed to raise visibility by organizing rallies and encouraging teachers to wear their PAEA shirts on Fridays and during events to show their support for the union.

One such example is on the morning of April 30, when teachers at all PAUSD schools assembled by school entrances and held signs such as “honk for teachers” or “supporting PAEA = supporting students.” Baldwin thought this rally was a great success and received a lot of community support.

“I think it’s been great,” she said. “Students have been out here and I’ve seen them out at different sites as well. And parents seemed very receptive. And even if we aren’t asking, they’re honking and showing their support.” PAEA and PAUSD have both been committed to keeping the public informed about this process. All negotiations prior to the impasse, which must legally remain confidential, and the current proposal of the tentative agreement are published on both websites. Each website has summaries of the proposals to make it more digestible for the public, however, due to the complexity of the negotiations Austin emphasized the importance of keeping the discussion contained so that its nuances are not miscommunicated.

“(Students) can have opinions, but really, this is between two negotiating teams that have a total of 10 people (and) that’s where it should stay because it’s impossible to explain every nuance,” he said. “I have concerns about involving students in this negotiation because if the question is ‘do you love your teacher,’ I’m going to hope the answer is always yes. I love our teachers. Everyone should love our teachers.”

School Board President Jesse Ladomirak echoed Austin’s sentiment.

“If your teacher is telling you something, our hope is that you trust your teacher,” she said. “If your teacher is telling you something, we don’t have a lot of interest in trying to get you to think the other way.”

These negotiations have been the subject of many campus conversations and for good reason: PAUSD, which has never been at an impasse for teacher contracts, may be the outlier in district negotiations. According to Chow, the district and union requests were farther apart than normal this year, but mediation is a normal and helpful part of many similar negotiations.

“I’ve been in other districts where they’re at an impasse all the time, every day of the year they’re in there at impasse,” she said. “It’s just what happens when you’re negotiating and you get stuck and need a mediator and come in and help parties (with) out of the box thinking.”

Although this impasse is a rare and complex topic, both the union members and district officials are committed to maintaining professionalism and respect in the midst of this negotiation.

“If (people) take anything away (from this), it’s not a fight, it’s a negotiation process which happens every year,” Austin said. “This year, we’re bringing in somebody to help us work through the tension. And it’s all going to be fine.”

A correction regarding the percentage of the reserves has been updated from the print edition.

Gallery • 4 Photos

Vin Bhat

Students leave Gunn following the shelter-in-place mandate.

At 1:58 p.m. today, a message on the intercom instructed students to begin sheltering in place. This mandate lasted for one hour and 48 minutes, eventually lifted by an intercom announcement at 3:46 p.m. 

According to the City of Palo Alto Police Calls for Service map, 1:51 p.m. calls reported a man with a gun and a 1:53 p.m. call reported a bomb threat, both near Georgia Avenue and Miranda Avenue. The City of Palo Alto has now confirmed that these calls were hoaxes — the first two, at 1:51 p.m., stated they had seen a teen boy carrying a rifle and two pipe bombs walking toward Gunn, and that a man in his twenties wearing body armor and carrying a rifle was approaching the school. The 1:53 p.m. call came from a man who said he was approaching Gunn with a bomb. 

This initial shelter-in-place announcement was reiterated at 2:01 p.m., emphasizing that the situation was not a drill. Two more announcements at 2:31 p.m. and 3:06 p.m. reminded students to keep sheltering.

At 2:15 p.m., Principal Dr. Wendy Stratton posted a Schoology update detailing that there was an unconfirmed threat on campus, and that the Palo Alto Police Department was present and partnering with admin to provide more updates. 

A PAPD thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted at 2:35 p.m. said that school officials had also instructed students to shelter in place at Fletcher Middle School as a precautionary measure. Police also confirmed that all students and staff on Gunn’s campus were safe.

At 2:48 p.m., staff members received an email from Stratton stating that students would be released from school at 3:50 p.m. and would be permitted to transport themselves home or be picked up by a parent. All after-school events, including athletics, were canceled. Parents received the same information via ParentSquare at 2:54 p.m., and students were notified via Schoology soon after.

At 3:09 p.m., PAPD noted in the same X thread that they had “uncovered no evidence to corroborate that any actual threat exists,” but that they would continue the shelter-in-place while investigating. Half an hour later, they announced the end of their search.

Police were still present on campus as students were dismissed. According to an officer who wished to remain anonymous due to the pending investigation, the lockdown and search went according to police and PAUSD protocol. However, there is still an open, criminal investigation. According to a 4:46 p.m. Schoology post from Stratton, a police presence will remain on campus throughout the week, and there will be additional staff members available at the Wellness Center. 

Police confirmed that Orinda’s Miramonte High School, located just east of Oakland, was also in lockdown as of 3 p.m., but police at Gunn stated that there was no known connection between the two incidents.

According to Gunn Safety Committee member Vin Bhat, Gunn’s safety committee will be convening after school on April 23, and the districtwide committee will be meeting on Wednesday, April 24. Gunn administrators said they could not comment until Tuesday, April 23.

My decision to watch the April 8 solar eclipse at the center of the path of totality stems from a family tradition: After traveling to Missouri to see the 2017 solar eclipse, my family followed this year’s eclipse to the beautiful beaches of Mazatlan, Mexico, where we saw all four minutes and 26 seconds of totality as the moon’s shadow came in over the western coast.

If you are in the path of totality like I was, after second contact — when the leading edge of the moon hits the leading edge of the sun — the moon directly overlaps with the sun and you can take off your protective eyewear to stare directly at the sun. It truly is a moment that a camera cannot do justice — the split-second transition from watching the tiny, orange sliver of sun wane away to observing the breathtaking faux sunset over the ocean, the sun a brilliant halo encompassing the pure black circle of the moon.

While I don’t believe in astrology, I can see how some would want feel a spiritual connection to totality. Astrology, in its original form, is an attempt to find personal meaning in the cosmos — a way to use the stars to explain what seems inexplicable. And even though we now have scientific explanations for why it looks like “the sun has been eaten” (according to some of the earliest carvings of eclipses), it can be fun — and for some, meaningful — to attach personal significance to the event.

Across the U.S., astrology believers have connected this event to horoscopes and omens. Following the April 5 New York and New Jersey earthquake, netizens took to Twitter claiming that the earthquake was a bad omen. According to CBS, a Philadelphia astrologist said that the eclipse would be extra meaningful to people with certain zodiac signs and signify different life moments for them.

At the same time, our fascination with eclipses has also led to advances in astronomy, as they are key moments to study the moon, the sun, light and orbits. A 1919 eclipse confirmed Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity three years after its publication. During this year’s eclipse, NASA sent out more scientific instruments by rocket to collect data on the eclipse’s effect on Earth.

Whether people look up at the skies to study the sun, find an astrological connection or take in the beauty of an infrequent natural occurrence, they gain appreciation for and curiosity about our world. While rare, eclipses are worthwhile and a reminder to reach for the sky. See you in Spain for the next one in 2026!

Taekwondo has grown into an integral part of An’s identity. In Korea, An viewed taekwondo more as a hobby, but he began spending over 15 hours a week on the sport after joining his new studio in the U.S., Taekwon Tigers. The studio encouraged him to become involved in competitions.

“Now, I want to do better,” he said. “I want to make sure I get higher rankings, but also just see myself improve as an athlete.”

Instead of sparring, An competes in “poomsae,” a performance of a pattern of taekwondo moves for a score. This focus on form instead of combat gave him a new perspective on the martial art.

“I’m grateful that it’s considered a sport, but it’s also an art with a lot of history,” he said. “Considering that it’s a Korean martial art, it’s a part of my cultural identity and it’s how I communicate with that (part of me).”

According to An, due to the rigid ranking system for the event in the U.S., it is very difficult to surpass competitors with a higher initial ranking. However, he has still managed to climb the ranks.

“(When) I made it to (the national taekwondo junior division) top 10, it felt like I kind of disproved that rigged system and showed that anyone could still make it up there as long as they really invested their time and effort,” An said.

Through taekwondo, An has learned to persevere, focus on making realistic progress and cultivate intrinsic motivation.

“At first, even though I was really bad at it, I just enjoyed it so much that I would do more,” he said. “I would go (to my studio) one to two hours earlier and stay after for another 30 minutes just to do the same thing over and over. It felt like I was doing something that not everyone else would be able to do later in their lives.”

Gallery • 22 Photos

Chinyoung Shao

Work hard, play harder: The juggling community embodied this saying during their fifth annual Game of Throws Festival last weekend. From Jan. 19-21, jugglers from all over the world learned, competed and above all else, had fun. 

Run by Gunn’s Juggling Club, the Game of Throws involved workshops and open-gym juggling sessions all weekend, a battle event Friday night, a gala show Saturday night and final games on Sunday. Events were free for jugglers and non-jugglers alike, except a $10 admission to the gala show, which had around 650 audience members. 

Friday night, attendees were welcomed to compete in a juggling battle — juggling and impromptu performing fused with the flair of a rap or breakdance battle. According to Juggling Club President junior Nikki DeVincentis, competitors performed 30-second on-the-spot acts.

“It’s so amazing, not only because you get to see some of the people who will perform at the gala show, but you also just get to see local talents join in,” they said. “People who nobody knows, or that nobody here knows, just come in and blow everybody away. It’s just so amazing to see the community come together.”

Juggling Club Advisor Matt Hall opened Saturday night’s gala show with his diabolo act. Over the course of the evening, ten performers displayed their skill with balls, clubs, diabolos, rings, hula hoops, unicycles and countless other juggling props, in a combination of both long-perfected and brand-new acts.

For the first time in his years hosting the festival, Hall joined the audience for the rest of the gala show with his wife, Gunn Student Activities Director Lisa Hall. 

“I hear people going, ‘Oh my god,’ ‘Whoa, how do you do that?’ ‘Whoa, that’s crazy,’ ‘That’s awesome,’ and I’m just loving it because this is what I want,” he said. “I want to introduce juggling and circus arts to the Palo Alto community and to Gunn High School.” 

At one point during the show, mulleted and mustachioed performer Mark Wilder pedaled onstage atop his unicycle in a bright blue suit with “PARTY” stitched on the back. Mesmerizing audience members,  he first jump-roped, then juggled clubs with a ball bouncing on a platform on a pole on his head, all while riding his unicycle to the tune of 80s hits. As his grand finale, he lowered himself to the ground and raised himself back up while balancing a ball atop a pole on his forehead. Wilder attended the Game of Throws last year as well, but this was his first year in the gala show. 

“The Game of Throws is the best juggling festival in the world right now,” Wilder said. “It attracts quality jugglers, world-class talent — not just the hobbyists but the performers from all over the country. People fly in from Chicago, Boulder, Texas. We had people from the Czech Republic, from Mexico, from New Zealand.”

According to Wilder, juggling transcends national boundaries. 

“Juggling is a language all jugglers speak, so you can go anywhere in the world and juggle with someone else,” he said. “Without knowing their language, you can still juggle together and have fun.”

The Game of Throws concluded on Sunday with more workshops, Olympic-style games and time for the jugglers to share their last tricks of the weekend. For Rhys Thomas, a gala-show performer, festivals like the Game of Throws are a defining aspect of the juggling community, offering opportunities for engagement and fun.

“What I find most uniquely wonderful about the juggling world is nowhere else will you find a room full of adults, like full of adults, just playing,” he said. “They’re not competing: There’s some competition, but for the most part, it’s a whole lot of people just playing.”

The Gunn Juggling Club, responsible for hosting the event, continues to meet on Wednesdays at lunch to draw more students into the enthralling activity they have come to love. 

“It is just like a sport, in my opinion, where you practice so much to get to move your body and (find) the most perfect way to accomplish this task,” DeVincentis said. “And I think that the end result of being able to perform something is really real. It’s just so dynamic watching all these things move through the air, getting a technique perfect.”

Watching the club meet on Jan. 24, the Wednesday after the festival, was one of the most rewarding outcomes of the festival  for Hall.

“Ultimately, it’s their festival,” he said. “They worked on the systems with me. They worked the (registration) desk. They taught workshops. It gets them stoked. They’re gonna walk away going ‘I’m never going to forget those three days at Gunn High School.’”

To judge a historical figure based solely on their era’s standards is to ignore centuries’ worth of social development. Although it is impossible to expect historical figures to have lived according to our societal norms, excusing horrific actions such as Columbus’ because they were “appropriate for their time” is disingenuous to ourselves today. It is necessary to evaluate historical figures based on our current standards to develop a more accurate understanding of traditional “heroes” while creating room for new narratives in the historical pantheon.

In 2017, the PAUSD Board of Education unanimously voted to rename Jordan and Terman Middle Schools because their original namesakes, David Starr Jordan and Lewis Madison Terman, were leaders of the eugenics movement, a pseudoscientific cause rooted in white supremacy and ableism. Their movement may have been popular — though still disputed — in its time, but that doesn’t justify their discriminatory beliefs. Honoring these men as figureheads of our middle schools brings their values into the present. Judging them by current moral guidelines is necessary because even though they are figures of the past, celebrating them occurs in the present. Thus, our expectations for them must be based on contemporary values.

The word “judging” often implies stark criticisms and blanket statements. Judgment, however, doesn’t need to be black and white. Thomas Jefferson, for example, supported individual freedoms while enslaving people. If we only evaluate a historical figure like Jefferson by the societal norms of his time, we assess him by the norms set by those in power in the 1800s — people who, at the time, condoned slavery. By reevaluating him using our current standards, we can create a fuller judgment relevant to our time that includes both deserved praise and necessary critique.

While removing a historical figure’s statue or name can cause backlash, it creates space for recognizing historical figures who better reflect our values. Applying current judgment to historical figures isn’t erasing history but expanding it to include people who would not have received the same recognition in their own time. Figures such as Sacagawea, who was never credited in her own time but is now the face of the gold dollar coin, can serve as inspirations to students who feel underrepresented in history classes.

Judging historical figures by modern standards is also essential in teaching. As products of our current time, we have inherent biases that are impossible to separate from our history education. Understanding these biases can help us contextualize our learning instead of trying to escape it. If we are to learn from history, we must teach it for the present.

By focusing on historical context and standards, we dismiss our responsibility to the betterment of our standards — and the countless people who have always condemned wrongdoing, even in the past. In assessing these figures through a contemporary lens, we can reevaluate how and which historical figures we celebrate and why. We can hold ourselves accountable and strive to build ourselves into better moral models for our current society and generations to come.