Las Lomitas school board embraces diverse staff
MENLO PARK >> After Las Lomitas school board member Cynthia Solis Yi heard about the racism scandal in her daughters’ school district, her first thought was to return to New York City.
Surely, the former Wall Street trader thought, the home she’d made in Menlo Park was not the inclusive community she had expected after vulgar social media comments directed at Vice President- elect Kamala Harris made by the wife of the then- school board president surfaced and made headlines.
“The first thing I thought was I wanted to move out of the district,” Solis Yi said.
Then co-president of the La Entrada Middle School PTA, Solis Yi, like many other parents in the small, two- campus Las Lomitas
school district, was enraged when back in November Mehridith Philips Venverloh — wife of board President Jon Venverloh — posted racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments about Harris.
In one tweet, Mehridith Philips Venverloh questioned Harris’ qualifications, saying, “All she needs to be qualified is a black (profanity)! No brain needed!” and implied that the Harris had “(profanity) her way to the top.”
As the tweets circulated in teacher and parent groups, more than 100 people signed a letter by the Las Lomitas Education Association condemning the posts as racist within days. Emboldened by the community support for change, Solis Yi penned her own letter excoriating Jon Venverloh and calling for his resignation.
With the backlash mounting, he resigned. Days later, Jody Leng — who had won a seat on the board in the November election — announced she would not take her seat. And just a week after that, parents were calling for the resignation of another board member, a campaign that’s still ongoing.
After an application process to fill the two open seats on the board, a threemember board chose Solis Yi and Molly Finn to replace Jon Venverloh and Leng and be the next board members. Women are now a majority on once male- dominated and largely White body, and there are two Asian American members, the first in the board’s 100-year history.
“It was a call to action for each of us to examine and confront our own biases and to ensure our school district supports diversity,” Finn said. “I don’t take pride or pleasure in being appointed under these circumstances, but I feel I can be helpful in mending the harm.”
Solis Yi — who runs the San Franciscobased non-profit La Cocina supporting low-income food entrepreneurs — said it was important for her to have an Asian American on the school board and supported Jason Morimoto, who was elected in November 2019.
The Las Lomitas District governs Las Lomitas Elementary School in Atherton and La Entrada Middle School in Menlo Park, and its student body is 50% White, 22% Asian American, 11% Latino and 1% Black students, according to school data aggregator Public School Review.
Since moving to the community in 2011, Solis Yi heard about the reputation of the largely White and affluent community as stuck in its old ways and even rac
ist at times. So she was happy to see the community was as outraged as her.
“The community and sort of support around asking Venverloh to resign and just all of the people stepping up saying there’s no space for this here, to me, was amazing and made me even more proud to be in this community,” Solis Yi said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s one thing to have your worst fears be affirmed, but quite another to see that the majority of the people don’t support that point of view.”
Both Finn and Solis Yi said Tuesday they pledged to never allow something like that to happen again and were enthusiastic about the new more diverse makeup of the board. They said they will place a wider focus on equity and inclusion and increasing diversity at the district.
Finn said she’s excited at the diversity on the board now, and she said “you’ll see that reflected in the moves we make in the coming years.” She said improving the image of the district is not something she’s very concerned about, but she will work with her colleagues to ensure the “spirit of equity and inclusion is reflected in our policies and how we govern.”
Though initially discouraged by the situation, Solis Yi has found a new passion for representing her community. She said she’d never thought she’d be the one to increase the diversity on the board.
“When I moved to this community, I think something like this would have gone unnoticed,” said Solis Yi. “We could have dismissed it as ‘ well, this is a really close-minded community so whatever.’ But in this case, no, the whole community was embraced to be associated with it.”
Solis Yi said her appointment and the new board is a “really nice way to wrap up” an otherwise difficult period in the board’s history.
“Hopefully, people will think again about how they conduct themselves in public,” Solis Yi said.