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Mele Latu, who made an unsuccessful bid for the Ravenswood City School District Board of Education in the November election, will be appointed to fill a vacant seat on the board, trustees agreed on Thursday night.
The board members will formally vote on Latu’s appointment at their next meeting on Dec. 10, but all three present trustees agreed to support her. Latu will replace Stephanie Fitch, who resigned in October, citing family circumstances that meant she would no longer be an East Palo Alto resident. The board quickly decided to appoint her replacement rather than hold a costly special election.
Latu’s selection as the final candidate on Thursday came after a rocky meeting during which one trustee left early due to frustration with the process. The board invited four candidates to come for in-person interviews at the district office, with all attendees wearing masks and sitting far apart from each other — and the microphones. The audio quality was poor for much of the meeting, which the public attended virtually, and even cut out at one point.
Trustee Marielena Gaona Mendoza, who herself had applied for Fitch’s seat, and community members also criticized the board for not allowing people who had submitted late applications to be considered and in one case, that they initially excluded one applicant who did not feel safe participating in an in-person interview. (Later in the meeting, the board decided to conduct an interview with her over Zoom.)
Gaona Mendoza, who lost her bid for a second term on the board in the November election, said the application process was unfair and “rigid.” She was among several people whose applications were thrown out because they didn’t see a 5 p.m. deadline that was listed online but not on the paper application. The three other trustees — Board President Ana Maria Pulido, Vice President Sharifa Wilson and Trustee Tamara Sobomehin — agreed to “stick to the process” and not allow late applicants to participate.
The trustees interviewed Latu, a community collaboration manager for the Emerson Collective; Laura Nunez, an East Palo Alto Academy teacher who ran unsuccessfully in the 2018 school board election; Toby Goldberg, school programs manager at Palo Alto nonprofit Environmental Volunteers; district parent Lileiti Grew; and Michelle Sambrano, a parent and partner executive at Hitachi Data Systems.
They asked each candidate to answer the same eight questions about why they wanted to apply for the position, their experience in education, major issues facing the school district and how they work as a team member. The board members then chose their top two candidates, which were unanimously Nunez and Latu.
Pulido, Wilson and Sobomehin lauded both as qualified candidates with deep roots in the community who would serve the district well.
But Pulido and Wilson advocated more for Latu, citing her work in youth mental health and representation of the Pacific Islander community. Latu worked on One East Palo Alto’s behavior health advisory group ambassador team, which provided culturally competent crisis support to middle school students who experience trauma as a result of violent crime in East Palo Alto. In that role, she worked directly with students at Ronald McNair Academy, Cesar Chavez Academy and the Ravenswood Middle School. The two trustees said having a board member with a deeper understanding of social-emotional health during school closures that could last until the summer is critical.
And Ravenswood hasn’t had a Pacific Islander board member in eight years, Wilson said, arguing that Latu’s appointment could increase that community’s engagement in the schools.
“It would be outstanding if this board reflected the population in this district,” she said. “To me, the board would reflect what East Palo Alto is, the broad diversity that we bring to the table.”
Sobomehin, who ran on a reform slate with Nunez in 2018, argued for Nunez’s perspective as a high school teacher with direct classroom experience — particularly given Ravenswood’s recent focus on better preparing students for success in high school. But with the other two trustees backing Latu, Sobomehin ultimately said she’ll support her.
Latu attended Clifford School in Redwood City and graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School in 2009. She works at the Emerson Collective’s Bloomhouse site in East Palo Alto, which is “part of the long-term vision for Emerson Collective to partner with the local community in creating the future of the East Palo Alto waterfront,” its website reads. In a previous interview for her election bid, she said she would focus on creating “togetherness” in a district that’s gone through leadership transitions, financial upheaval and is threatened by outside forces of gentrification and housing affordability. She pointed to her “network and rapport within the community” as a source for building stronger relationships in the district.
Though Latu paused her school board campaign for personal reasons, she came in fifth place with 2,047 votes, according to official election results certified by the San Mateo County Elections Office on Thursday.
Once approved, Latu will serve the remainder of Fitch’s appointment, until December 2022. She’ll join the two newly elected trustees: former Ravenswood teacher Bronwyn Alexander and parent Jenny Varghese Bloom.
“No process is perfect,” Pulido said before adjourning the meeting, “but we feel like the outcome is representative of who we are as a community and where we’re headed.”
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