Paun to bring diversity to Petaluma school board

Joanna Paun didn’t set out to make history with her campaign for Petaluma school board, but she did.|

When Joanna Paun debated running for the Petaluma City Schools’ Board of Education, history or precedent had little influence on her decision.

She wanted to provide representation for minority families, and improve relations between teachers and district officials. She wanted to enforce Title IX safeguards and reduce suspension rates for disadvantaged and special needs students.

But her selection by the voters – currently the second-highest vote-getter in unofficial counts – does, in fact, make history and establish a new precedent. If the results hold, Paun, 40, will become the city’s first-ever black elected official, introducing a new perspective that could help reshape Petaluma’s largest school district in the coming years.

“I think you can make a concerted effort to hire or seek out people that represent the community,” said Paun. “There are studies that show students do better if they have a more diverse teaching staff. ... I think that really spoke to people (during the campaign).”

Race aside, Paun’s election comes on the tail end of a year that began with a fair bit of controversy. Despite a string of excellent performance reviews and her popularity with students and parents, Paun was dismissed without cause in her second year as a Kenilworth Junior High School counselor.

Principal Bennett Holley told Paun in February that she would not be brought back and wasn’t “a good fit,” fueling a public backlash that lasted for months as speculation ran rampant as to what those three words implied.

However, the administration made a lawful move since probationary staff members can be dismissed before the first day of their third year when tenure protections kick in.

And while race was a convenient theory, it was never substantiated. Nine months later, Paun, now the counseling director at St. Vincent de Paul High School, said she still doesn’t have any clarity on why the Kenilworth administration didn’t want her back at a school she “fell in love with.”

“I have to consider every single option, including (race),” Paun said. “I still don’t know.”

During February and March, she addressed the school board multiple times, and was buoyed by numerous supporters within the community that spoke on her behalf. At one point, Paun even said she would run for a seat to help empower other educators that might not have been brought back but were afraid to challenge the decision.

While admitting she made that statement flippantly, many residents held her to it, Paun said. After consulting with her husband John, 40, and their four daughters, 13-year-old twins Janessa and Juliana, Jasmine, 11, and Jaylen, 6, she filed her paperwork in August to make it official.

“The more I thought about it, I figured I was just as qualified as anyone else,” Paun said. “I worked in the schools. I have kids in the schools. I feel like I have the qualifications for it.”

Paun grew up in Mill Valley, attending Tamalpais High School and College of Marin before earning a psychology degree from Sonoma State in 2002. After graduating, she worked as a nanny, which led her to a job as a special education aide at Tamalpais Valley Elementary.

That experience, providing 1-on-1 instruction for an autistic student, changed her entire career path, Paun said. She returned to Sonoma State in 2010 and completed a master’s degree in counseling, eager to pursue a career assisting student development.

Following an internship at Creekside, an alternative high school in Sonoma, she interned at Kenilworth and received a full-time position prior to the 2016-17 school year.

Now in the private school world, Paun is working with juniors and seniors at St. Vincent, assisting approximately 130 students with college applications and financial aid.

“It’s very rewarding,” she said. “These kids are so great.”

As Paun prepares for her inaugural term, she said she plans on digging through this year’s meetings to get up to speed on the current status of the board. The district is also sending her to a California School Boards Association workshop later this month to learn more about being a trustee.

In addition to the issues Paun raised on the campaign, she wants to bolster efforts to clamp down on substance abuse among students and introduce more character-building opportunities to reduce anxieties felt by minority students that often get targeted by bullying.

And contract negotiations are also looming, which she views as a key opportunity to ensure teachers feel valued and have a voice within the district.

“I just want to end this term, hoping to build as many bridges as possible,” Paun said. “It feels like its teachers versus the district … but we’re all there for the best interests of our students. I don’t believe anyone doesn’t care about kids. We’re all on the same page. We can do this without being acrimonious.”

(Contact News Editor Yousef Baig at yousef.baig@arguscourier.com or 776-8461, and on Twitter @YousefBaig.)

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