Is Alum Rock board tiring of brash trustee?
Twitter escapades, combative style have drawn comparisons to Trump
As a leader, he has scolded the public, browbeaten underlings and lashed out at critics. With his habit of taking to Twitter to promote himself and accuse others, Khanh
Tran, president of the Alum Rock
Union school board, has evoked comparisons to the nation’s 45th president.
Tran, 50, sits at the vortex of the crisis that has gripped the K-8 dis- trict in East San Jose since spring when state auditors warned of possible fraud, misspending and mismanagement. His Tweets have blamed “scripted mobs,” “factless FCMAT”
— referring to state auditors — and “fake news.”
His latest proposals: to hire a deputy superintendent to directly report to the board — unheard of in school districts — and to discipline or fire Superintendent Hilaria Bauer for allegedly mishandling fire repairs at Mathson Middle School. The proposals have sparked threats of a recall effort against those who support Tran’s ideas.
“We need to ensure that one person cannot manage everything,” Tran said, blaming overspending on Mathson’s fire repairs on “a lack of checks and balances.” His off-the-cuff pronouncements have alarmed employees, parents, board colleagues and others.
Thoughtful and solicitous one minute, condemning and brash the next, the mercurial Tran has deftly navigated the contentious and shifting politics of Alum Rock, where trustees who once filed restraining orders against each other are now allies on the board.
“I am trying to stay neutral,” Tran said in defense of his style. ““I just want the district to run properly. All I want is the best for Alum Rock.”
But 2½ years into his first term, Tran lamented, “Instead of focusing on kids, there are all these problems that come out of nowhere.”
A state audit earlier this year warned of potential fraud involving the district’s construction manager, Del Terra Real Estate, and its handling of millions of dollars in building and repairs financed by taxpayer-approved bonds. And this month, an attorney’s report pointed out violations in repairing Mathson Middle School after a February 2016 fire: illegally declaring an emergency, exceeding limits on repairs and failure to ratify contracts, among other things.
Those problems aside, dissatisfied parents, staff and even fellow board members assail Tran’s leadership.
“I am so frustrated,” said trustee Karen Martinez, who heard about the proposals Tran plans to introduce at a Wednesday meeting from a reporter, and who last week sought a meeting to propose removing Tran from the board’s helm. That issue appears on Wednesday’s agenda.
“He does not seem to have a direction. He goes from one decision to another, sometimes in the same conversation,” said Raymond Mueller, who heads the district’s Citizens Bond Oversight Committee.
“The glaring part is how public meetings are conducted, how our public is treated in the course of public meetings,” trustee Esau Herrera said. “We’re not all born to be good meeting facilitators.”
More so than in recent years, machinations have consumed the school board, sucked up an inordinate amount of staff time and eclipsed discussion of education and student wellbeing.
In the past 12 weeks, “we’ve had board meetings almost every other week and not discussed curriculum, new programming, new iPads — why aren’t we talking about the school year?” asked Mueller. “That’s the true failure of leadership this summer.”
Alum Rock serves a preponderance of high-needs students. Of the district’s 10,500 pupils, 85 percent come from poor families and 44 percent are English learners. The district is 79 percent Latino, 12 percent Asian and 9 percent other races.
Tran, however, is not the only Alum Rock board member inserting himself into the running of the district, as the state audit pointed out. But critics say the frequency and intensity of his missives to Bauer and other employees overshadow others’ interventions. In June, emails obtained by this newspaper show, Tran berated Bauer over the awarding of a bid for solar panels — which the board itself had approved.
“I lost confidence in you (Bauer) again,” wrote Tran, apparently disappointed that the board had awarded the bid to OpTerra Energy Services.
Bauer would not comment for this article.
A legal investigation backed by Tran found that the district violated policies and laws — on construction change orders and signatures — in repairing Mathson Middle School, damaged in a February 2016 fire. Insurance funds covered all the costs. On the other hand, Tran has staunchly insisted that despite the state audit, there’s no evidence that Del Terra is guilty of wrongdoing.
Asked about his outbursts against members of the public addressing the board, Tran replied, “Those people were really jerks. They were interrupting every single item.” Now, he said, critics are behaving more civilly at meetings.
Tran came to this country at age 8 with his family, refugees from Vietnam, first to Minnesota, then San Jose. He attended schools in the Franklin-McKinley and Alum Rock districts and graduated from Andrew Hill High.
He ran unsuccessfully once for state Assembly and twice for the East Side Union High School District board. He won his Alum Rock seat in 2014 with two key endorsements, one from the teachers union. President Jocelyn Merz now says the endorsement was a mistake.
Tran also was backed by the Silicon Valley Asian Pacific American Democratic Club. When asked for comment, the club’s then-President and now Assemblyman Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, wrote in an email, “Three years ago, Khanh Tran unfortunately misled me and thousands of voters into believing he would be a respectful, effective elected leader.”
Among his accomplishments, Tran touts awarding teachers a raise last year and ending contentious labor negotiations, as well as discovering mistakes that he said enriched HarBro, the contractor that rebuilt Mathson.
A divorced father of four children — one in high school, two in college and one in the Navy — Tran is a cybersecurity engineer for Santa Clara-based Global Foundries. He previously worked as a special-education aide, and then in IT for schools.
He is challenging Rep. Ro Khanna, D-San Jose, for Congress next year. If he is successful, Tran would like to serve on the House Armed Services Committee and would advocate for a department of cybersecurity. If he could head it or become undersecretary for defense, “I would be living my dream,” Tran said.
As for his own Twitter postings, Tran said, “Social media is always going to be social media. In life we just enjoy it.”
He added, “Nothing I say or do hurts anyone.”