Guest Opinion: Why we came back to Palo Alto ...

by Jeremy Weinstein

It had been 12 years since I last lived in Palo Alto. Then, I was a pimply teenager, trying to figure out my passions, my goals and my place in the world.

I graduated from Gunn High School in 1993 ready to break away from all that I loved about my childhood -- to discover a world beyond Palo Alto. This year, I returned with a Ph.D. and a purpose: to make a life here, raise a family and give to my kids what I had growing up.

As my wife and I grappled with the decision about where to live, there were some obvious reasons for choosing to come home. As a young academic starting my career, Stanford University offered unparalleled opportunities for research, teaching and intellectual stimulation. The place that offered me room to skateboard as a child now looked quite different, with its rich academic resources.

But as we looked at a variety of university towns and cities around the country, there was a deeper pull that made Palo Alto the right choice for us.

It was in Palo Alto that I was turned on to learning, and not just for achievement's sake. Tim Farrell, my English teacher at Gunn, used to read aloud to us from his favorite works of literature once a week -- tea and cookies provided in the back of the room.

Karen Antoun, my freshman biology teacher, took biology from the book and made it come alive, challenging us to grapple with the identification, dissection and discovery of how plants work.

These early experiences helped me discover the joy of learning new things. Finding that joy, in everyday life, has made my experience of the world so much sweeter, and helped put me on an academic path.

It was in Palo Alto that I discovered the importance of connecting what I learn in the classroom to the real world around me. Community-service programs in middle school and high school exposed me and my classmates to the harsh inequalities that existed (and still exist) in our own tight-knit community.

Many of us dedicated weekend days to social events with the elderly in Casa Olga, tutoring programs for struggling kids, and clean-up, painting, and construction efforts in East Palo Alto. My passion now to address issues of global poverty had its origins in my first experiences as a community activist in Palo Alto's middle schools.

And it was in Palo Alto that I experienced first-hand the value of community engagement. Gunn High School was an amazing place, not only because of the teachers and the students but also because of the commitments of untold numbers of parents through the PTA, Site Council and sports boosters.

The school district back in 1993 was already grappling with the challenges faced by Palo Alto's stressed-out teens. Conversations between the Youth Council, the City Council and the School Board helped to bring these issues to the fore.

My commitment to being an active member of all the communities in which I have lived was forged in Palo Alto.

The thread linking these three aspects of my life -- and a central reason we decided to come home -- is the Palo Alto public-school system. And it turns out that I am not the only one who came back for exactly these reasons.

Carol Mullin has two boys in the Palo Alto schools, one in second grade at Walter Hays and the other in the Young Fives program. She grew up in the school district, graduating from Palo Alto High School in 1983.

When she and her husband were ready to leave Seattle, Palo Alto was the obvious choice. "The schools were 90% of the reason we came home," she said. "The schools are so great you don't even need to think about it."

Linda Stebbins Jensen and her husband Eric were high-school sweethearts at Paly. Although both went away for college, they quickly moved back to the community -- so quickly that both feel as if they never left. Linda, now executive director of the Winter Lodge, remembers her experience of Greendell elementary school: "It was like a little one-room schoolhouse. My mother always said it was like being at a private school." Now, with twin 7-year-old daughters at El Carmelo, she says they couldn't be happier with the education the girls are receiving.

Jane Alhouse Gee, a 1973 graduate of Gunn, lit up when asked about her teachers. "Of course, I remember Tim Farrell. He brought Shakespeare to life." She has third and fourth graders at Duveneck.

"These are the magic years," she said of her kids' experiences. "The school has really great teachers, kids, and parents ... the whole package!"

While Carol, Linda and Jane are already giving their kids the best education they could hope for, my wife and I are not yet parents. We don't feel quite ready for that ultimate responsibility.

But we do feel ready to take on the responsibility of supporting the Palo Alto schools: I recently joined the Campaign for Excellence -- the community-wide effort to approve Measure A, a new parcel tax for our schools on the June 7 ballot.

Amazingly, I serve with parents who were active in the PTA when I was a student, a social studies teacher who attended my Bar Mitzvah and a former mayor who encouraged my activism when I served on the city's Youth Council 12 years ago. Together, we are spreading out across the city to speak to parents and future parents about the urgent need to support Measure A.

What brings us all together is the desire to maintain what makes Palo Alto distinctive -- its superb and unparalleled schools. The prospect of further cuts to PAUSD programs puts all of our kids, even those not yet on the way, at risk.

It is our schools that made me (and countless others) who we are. For many of us, it is also the schools that brought us home.

Jeremy Weinstein, a Gunn High School graduate and former chair of the Palo Alto Youth Council, is an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University.