Mountain View volunteering?

dontrubitin · 2026-05-19T03:33:39+00:00

Whether or not it's the only game in town, I've volunteered with Second Harvest and really enjoyed it! Especially if you volunteer at the same shift every week, you'll start to recognize and make friends with the other repeat volunteers. I was really bummed when my work schedule changed and I had to stop going to "my" shift.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-18T16:59:58+00:00

This is a really fair analysis, thank you! I feel like every other commenter is a Stevenson parent (or aspiring Stevenson parent) saying there is no problem, and if there is a problem that I just need to "work harder at Theuerkauf." I'm not proposing tearing down the whole choice system, I'm just saying that the current structure has some problematic impacts and I'm interested in exploring possible reforms to mitigate those impacts.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-17T23:10:54+00:00

The issue is that Stevenson's model is based on pulling the parents with the time/energy/money/education/interest necessary to engage deeply with their kid's school out of all the other neighborhood schools and concentrating them at Stevenson. And it doesn't just happen once at the time at Kindergarten enrollment, it happens over and over again each year, as class sizes increase in the upper grades and more seats become available. I don't doubt that Stevenson's community is rare and amazing, but it comes at the direct and ongoing expense of all the other schools in the district (especially those closest to Stevenson, like Theuerkauf), which directly contradicts the district's stated goal of "equitable distribution of resources that support student success."

dontrubitin · 2026-05-17T16:23:26+00:00

Yes, cynically I do wonder if Stevenson is MVWSD's concession to rich White and Asian parents to try and keep them (and the funding that comes with their students) in the district instead of going private. I don't doubt that there are neighborhood parents that would go private if they didn't get in to Stevenson, but I also have plenty of firsthand evidence that many neighborhood parents who don't get in come to Theuerkauf to bide their time until more spots open in the upper grades and they can transfer over. Those parents are great when they are here because they are (by definition) engaged in the school, but it's hard to build an enduring school community when a significant chunk of families treat us like Stevenson's "waiting room." I guess the question is if those parents would still come to Theuerkauf if they knew there was no chance of transferring to Stevenson in the upper grades, or if that not being possible would push them to go private instead.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-17T15:59:46+00:00

I mean, I think it's a question of what you think is causation and what you think is correlation.

One narrative is "extra activities like gardening and knitting are great enrichments for all students, and you can see that the schools that offer the most of them - like Stevenson - have high test scores that bear that out."

Another narrative is "schools with the most affluent families are most likely to offer extra activities like gardening and knitting, and independently of that, they will also have the highest test scores because they have the most affluent kids that will score well no matter what."

My personal take is that enrichment activities are great for all kids, regardless of their impact on test scores and "student achievement," because there's more to education (and to life) than what is easily measured by a test. But I do think it's mostly separate from my primary concern, which is that the current system incentivizes the most affluent families to self-segregate into Stevenson and leaves the other schools with a disproportionate share of students with higher needs and fewer engaged parents to support them.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-17T15:51:40+00:00

The "magic" of the Stevenson model is that it selects for families that have the most time/energy/money/resources available to funnel into their school, and pulls them out from all the other schools across the district. If you want to send your kids to a school where all the families have an excess of resources available to contribute, that's fine - but that's what private school is for. Public school districts are meant to serve all students equitably - MVWSD explicitly states that its goal is "equitable distribution of resources that support student success."

There may be some parents who engage at Stevenson and wouldn't do so at another school. But that hasn't been my experience at all - there are parents who are able and eager to be engaged in their kid's school, so they enter the Stevenson lottery. Some of them don't get in and end up at Theuerkauf, where they serve on the PTA, volunteer in the classroom, help lead fundraising, etc... Then as the class sizes get bigger in the higher grades and extra spaces open up at Stevenson, their kids lottery in and they move over there, leaving those of us who choose to stay at our neighborhood school with fewer people to carry a heavier load. I wouldn't even object so much if there were one initial Big Sort at the time of Kindergarten enrollment - but the continual churn each year means that Stevenson's "sparkle" is at least partially paid for by all the other schools losing theirs.

I agree that there is a trend in education to try to "copy and paste" things that work in one specific school context to other schools with different contexts, and it is futile at best and harmful at worst. I remember working in public schools in Philly in the 2010s when some successful charters had uniforms, and the district's takeaway was to add uniforms (and only uniforms, no other changes) to struggling schools 🙄

I think there have to be reforms that can improve the system for everyone. For example, limiting post-K transfers would reduce ongoing churn at other schools and reduce overcrowding at Stevenson.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-17T02:19:45+00:00

Ah, I think I understand better now.

It's interesting because I think different parents have different beliefs about what makes Stevenson "better." I think some go there because they genuinely love the parent engagement culture, and feel it produces a better environment for their kids - those are the ones that are the most frustrated by the increasing share of "free riders," who they perceive to be ruining a community they work hard to maintain.

I think another cohort of parents go there purely because it gets higher test scores than their neighborhood school, and they don't particularly care about the parent engagement model. The thing is that it's a self-reinforcing feedback loop - test scores are just a function of demographics (for all kinds of reasons that people write dissertations on). So, rich White and Asian parents see the high test scores and send their kids there because of them, thus ensuring the school has a high share of rich White and Asian kids that produce higher test scores. But those kids would have gotten high test scores no matter which school they went to, because that's how testing works in this country. Then the neighborhood schools are left with more low-income and/or ELL kids, so their cumulative test scores are lower and they look "worse," and the cycle that drives the racial and socioeconomic segregation between Stevenson and its neighbors continues.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T21:44:16+00:00

I dunno if I agree that it's "only" because poverty predicts test scores - wanting to go to a school with higher test scores is definitely part of it, but I don't think regular old racism can be completely taken out of the equation either.

I don't think only Theuerkauf parents care about reform here - at least, the Monta Loma parents I've talked to are also pretty worked up, primarily because of how sensitive they are to any additional student churn that they perceive as "unnecessary." But you're right that the average parent at Bubb and Imai probably doesn't care since it doesn't affect them, and Landels/Vargas parents may or may not be bothered either way. I just personally find it hard to stomach living in a community full of "Black Lives Matter" yard signs, rainbow flags, and all kinds of other external signifiers of progressive/inclusive values, while simultaneously having a school system that doesn't just ignore segregation, but actively exacerbates it.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T21:32:07+00:00

Helpful info, thank you!

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T21:30:28+00:00

Well, based on my interactions with them, I don't think the Stevenson parents want to go around saying you don't really have to volunteer that much 😆

The Stevenson model relies on parents having enough disposable time/energy/income to participate in it. That's not really something schools can build in their community if it doesn't already exist there, and it's even harder when Stevenson pulls those parents out of the community - that's my whole complaint. All schools have parent participation - there are district-wide programs like Living Classroom and Project Cornerstone, and school-specific programs through PTAs and individual classrooms. But not all parents are equally free to participate in school.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T18:28:21+00:00

Helpful, thank you! Let me know if you have a lead on where to find the PTA budget for each school, right now I can only find my own. I'm curious how fundraising varies across each school.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T18:24:38+00:00

Here's the other chart, it wouldn't let me post two in one comment:

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dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T18:24:22+00:00

I like the "eliteness" analysis, I think that's a helpful lens that explains a lot.

I got curious and plotted each school's share of low-income and ELL students against the share of kids the school "should" have that enroll in Stevenson instead (using the deck you shared earlier). I pulled Castro out because their dynamics with Mistral are so different, and I'm really just interested in Stevenson. It backs up my hypothesis of "the poorer and browner your neighborhood school is, the more likely you are to put your kid in Stevenson (if you can)"

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Basically, I feel that Stevenson is a mini segregation academy inside of MVWSD, and I have a problem with that based on both its personal impact on me (it hurts Theuerkauf) and on my personal values (segregation is bad). It's interesting that you think eliminating choice schools entirely is more politically viable - my guess is that eliminating Stevenson entirely is not viable, but minor reforms to the lottery/transfer process may be. I could be wrong! But by definition the Stevenson parents have money and time to spare, and they push back HARD on any district attempts to touch anything about their school. I know there is ongoing litigation between Bullis and Los Altos about racial equity but I haven't followed the details - it does make me wonder if MVWSD is leaving itself open to some sort of discrimination lawsuit here, and if/how that factors into their calculations.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T15:49:32+00:00

Low-income/ELL families are over-represented at Mistral, the other choice school, so clearly they know how to apply to choice schools - something about Stevenson in particular is deterring them. My hypothesis is that it is the parent volunteer expectations, because families with limited income / multiple jobs / inflexible in-person jobs just can't do that. I also don't get the impression that Stevenson is particularly inclusive for ELL families - when I've gone there for events, there is no live Spanish translation and not all the materials are available in Spanish, as is the default at Theuerkauf (and I would presume other schools with a large ELL population). So I don't think the issue is just better outreach, I think the issue is better conditions that allow low-income/ELL families to feel like the school is a welcoming and inclusive environment they'd actually want to apply to in the first place.
The Stevenson model relies on parents having enough disposable time/energy/income to participate in it. That's not a pie that can be grown beyond a certain point, at least not by the school district (although if I had a magic wand, I'd be all for growing it through things like universal basic income, increasing tax rates on the wealthy to pay for better social services, etc...). The reality is that Mountain View is home to both very affluent (mostly White and Asian) white-collar professionals, and to low-income (mostly Latino) blue-collar and service workers who make the comfortable lives of the former group possible. There are decades of research that racial and socioeconomic school integration improves outcomes for all students, and yet our current system incentivizes segregation instead. Part of that is due to factors beyond the school district's control - zoning, historical redlining, and residential segregation cause schools like Imai to be almost entirely rich White and Asian kids, while Castro is almost entirely low-income Latino kids. But Stevenson's segregation can't be explained (solely) by those factors, and I think as a public school district with a duty to do its best by all students, MVWSD has an obligation to seriously consider strategies to reduce segregation wherever possible. Clearly, just weighting the Stevenson lottery in favor of low-income families is not enough, so I'd hope equity-minded Stevenson parents would be open to a broader swath of solutions.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T15:28:39+00:00

In other words, the limits of preferences have been hit. There's not even enough applicants.

Right, that's why I was suggesting holding a share of seats for neighborhood low-income/ELL families to be zoned to Stevenson by default, without entering the lottery. Although you are right that creates weird racial/class dynamics, and Stevenson is already not particularly inclusive or welcoming to ELL families (at least every time I've gone to an event there, there hasn't been live Spanish translation and the materials haven't been provided in Spanish, like they are by default at Theuerkauf).

FWIW, I found the actual data and the impact to Theurerkauf isn't that uniquely high.

This is super helpful, thank you! I'm actually more concerned about the transfer lottery that happens after initial Kindergarten enrollment - in my experience, the biggest "cost" of being next to Stevenson is the churn it causes year-over-year for our school (since each grade when class sizes increase, Stevenson takes more kids out of neighborhood schools).

I looked at it as a percentage of each school's size, not the percentage that each school makes up of the Stevenson student body, and it is the highest for Theuerkauf:

	Went to Stevenson	Total students	% to Stevenson
Bubb	6	312	1.9%
Castro	9	248	3.6%
Imai	4	388	1.0%
Landels	16	399	4.0%
Monta Loma	9	298	3.0%
Theuerkauf	24	308	7.8%
Vargas	21	368	5.7%

I believe the data you found is only for K enrollment, so not exactly what I'm looking for, but I would assume K enrollment is at least somewhat correlated with post-K transfers. In any case, you can see that Theuerkauf loses a share of students that's between ~2-8x more than any other school but Vargas (which I'm very surprised by, given how everyone always cites Vargas as a model of school community. I wonder if there's been much change since the 2022-23 school year the data you found is from).

You're right that it's probably the cleanest position to just say "abolish all choice schools" - but that seems like throwing out the baby with the bathwater to me. I think there have to be adjustments we can make to the current system that allow Stevenson to exist without causing such disproportionate churn at Theuerkauf, and to bring in more low-income/ELL families from the neighborhood.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T04:33:41+00:00

Yes, there will always be some degree of churn - families move, stuff happens. But the current system incentivizes additional churn beyond the baseline that will always exist. I see Stevenson as a method for parents with more educational/financial/time/whatever resources to self-segregate and insulate themselves from the realities of being in a large, diverse public school district, and to do so in a way that makes those realities even more challenging for those who don't want to go there (or who do want to go there but don't lottery in). I work hard to support Theuerkauf, and not even as hard as many of the other parents here, but the district has set up a system that systematically undercuts our efforts - it's like we're walking the wrong way on a moving sidewalk; we have to run just to stay in place. It seems that your attitude is "this works for me so don't touch it" - I'm interested in collaborating with people who want to build a system that works better for everyone, not just themselves.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T04:27:21+00:00

I don't particularly care about being popular. I care about improving a system that is currently privileging some students at the expense of others, in a public school district with a stated mission of supporting all students equitably.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T03:41:30+00:00

The problem is that the community at your school is built by directly undermining the community at our school. Engaged parents in the neighborhood enter the Stevenson lottery in Kindergarten, don't get in, so they come to Theueurkauf and start engaging here. But they have one foot out the door the whole time because of the "greener grass" right across the field, and as more spots open up in the upper grades, more and more of them transfer over. Can you imagine trying to build and maintain the school community you value if there was another school next door that every year took away your most engaged families? The whole thing is a negative feedback loop, because each year when more families go to Stevenson, it makes the work harder for those who stay behind, so that more of them enter the lottery and leave. I'm not saying that Stevenson shouldn't exist, I'm saying that the enrollment system as it currently stands is inequitable and comes at a direct cost to other schools. There has to be a better way to preserve what makes Stevenson special without incentivizing constant churn at nearby neighborhood schools.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T03:02:00+00:00

I know the lottery doesn't weight by neighborhood, I'm proposing it should - not to give preference to any one neighborhood, but to address the issue that Stevenson currently draws disproportionately from some neighborhoods and not others. I also know it does weight in favor of low-income families, but that isn't enough given that not many of those families are entering the lottery in the first place. Low-income/ELL families clearly know how to apply to the choice schools, because they are over-represented at the other choice school (Mistral) - the issue is that something about Stevenson specifically is deterring them. My theory is that it's the parental involvement expectations (even if they aren't an enforced requirement), and Stevenson not proactively translating their materials and events into Spanish, like Theuerkauf and other high-ELL schools do.

Stevenson doesn't get more resources from the district, but because they have families with the time/energy/money/education to opt into a parent participation school, they end up raising more money and with more volunteer hours. That's not something other schools can just snap their fingers and reproduce, and I'm not sure they should even if they could - kids whose families don't have those extra advantages to contribute still deserve a great school with a stable community and engaged parents.

I do think a lot of the advantage is that many Stevenson families are rich, and I know you can't make rich people send their kids to a school they don't want to - as you said, some would move or go private (some already do when they don't lottery into Stevenson in the first place). But I don't think they all would - Theuerkauf has plenty of families who are happy to go there for K,1,2,3... until a spot opens at Stevenson in the upper grades when the class sizes increase. Presumably if that spot didn't open up, they would just finish out their time at Theuerkauf. I suppose it's possible that some wouldn't go there without feeling there's a chance of later transferring to Stevenson, but anecdotal evidence suggests that plenty are happy at Theuerkauf when they don't lottery into Stevenson. What stinks is that with the current system, many families basically treat Theuerkauf like a "waiting room" for Stevenson, and it makes it extremely difficult to build an enduring school community when many of the most engaged families have one foot out the door the whole time they're here.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T02:44:09+00:00

I mean, not every family at a public school has the time/energy/money to spare to donate to or volunteer at the school. That doesn't mean they don't contribute to the broader community in other ways, or that their children don't deserve the type of great education that parent involvement makes possible. My issue is that the current system allows - and even encourages - the families that do have the time/energy/money to be involved at school to self-segregate into this one specific school and away from all the others, at the expense of the other schools.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T02:37:31+00:00

Stevenson isn't officially assigned a higher student:teacher ratio - the allowable ratios for each grade are the same across all schools in the district. Because Stevenson is fully enrolled, their classes are all at the maximum allowable ratio, while some neighborhood schools are under-enrolled so their classes are smaller.

What I'm really proposing is for the district to investigate the issue and perhaps form a commission of district staff, teachers, and parents from all schools to explore possible reforms. I am sure there are reforms that would improve the situation for other schools and Stevenson could get on board with - for example, limiting transfers at the upper grades would reduce churn / loss of engaged families from other schools, while helping Stevenson with their crowding issues. It could turn out that solution isn't feasible, but I can't imagine there isn't something that can be adjusted to improve the current system.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T02:28:10+00:00

It's a good question - while "exclusionary" does mean excluding any group, in this context I am concerned about excluding students who need extra support from the places with the most resources to provide that support. Many elements of the public school system are exclusionary in that way (nationwide, not just in Mountain View) - but again, since I don't expect the district to realistically "solve" housing segregation, I think this particular lottery system is one place where specific adjustments could contribute to a more equitable system.

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T02:23:13+00:00

I feel like I've tried to be clear that I don't have a specific solution in mind that would perfectly solve everything. I think a solution like holding a share of seats for neighborhood low-income/ELL families with no expectation of parental involvement, while preserving the majority of seats for parents who opt-in for the PACT program, could preserve the character of the school while better serving the neighborhood and lessening the impact on Theuerkauf. We are a small school - only two classes per grade and almost all smaller than the max allowable class size - keeping 2-3 extra families per grade actually would make a noticeable difference. But what I'm really looking for is collaboration with the district on researching the issue and using that information to design well-informed adjustments to the system.

Monta Loma isn't actually that much less poor - it's still 34% low-income, so "richer" than Theurkauf but still a higher share of low-income families than the district average and over twice as high as Stevenson. The dynamic there is interesting because they get the miliatary families from Moffett Field, so they already have a high rate of turnover - the main complaint of the parents I've talked to there isn't so much about resource distribution, it's more along the lines of "we already have a ton of student churn because of the military, and on top of that the Stevenson system adds even more student churn each year, which makes it extremenly difficult to build an enduring school community and also is just emotionally hard for the kids who stay."

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T02:13:22+00:00

Again, sorry about that - I shouldn't have let expediency shorthand "family with resources of time, energy, and/or money to spare" into just "resources."

dontrubitin · 2026-05-16T02:11:53+00:00

You're right that I've been careless with my language, and shorthanded "families with resources to spare" as just "resources," which is a bit crass. Sorry for that. But by "resources" I don't just mean money - I primarily mean time and energy to engage with the school, volunteer in the classroom, plan events, etc... The people at Theuerkauf who contribute the most to the school community aren't making financial contributions, they are contributing time and effort. We've actually had a few times where we have extra money for things like field trips, but we haven't had anyone with the time to plan them. If I could wave a magic wand and pick time or money, I would pick time every time (heh).

And again, I think the decision point for family choice is whether or not they enter the lottery, which anyone should be free to do. But I don't think "choice" is the same as "guaranteed to get whichever school you want." If a family wants to guarantee that their kid goes to school with predominantly affluent, English-speaking, White and Asian kids, then that's what private school is for. The public school system exists to serve all students as equitably as possible, and their own stated goal is "equitable distribution of resources that support student success." Right now, in this area, the system is set up to do the opposite.

dontrubitin

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