Doug Kunz

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Doug Kunz

Nonpartisan

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 5, 2024

Education

High school

West High School

Bachelor's

Stanford University, 1996

Graduate

Northwestern University, 2013

Personal

Birthplace

Torrance, Calif.

Religion

Christian: Presbyterian

Profession

Product manager

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Personal LinkedIn

Doug Kunz ran for election for an at-large seat of the Cupertino Union School District Board of Education in California. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.

Kunz completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Doug Kunz was born in Torrance, California. He graduated from West High School. He earned a bachelor's and graduate degree from Stanford University in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and earned a graduate degree from Northwestern University in 2013. His career experience includes working as a product manager.

Elections

2024

See also: Cupertino Union School District, California, elections (2024)

General election

General election for Cupertino Union School District Board of Education At-large (2 seats)

The following candidates ran in the general election for Cupertino Union School District Board of Education At-large on November 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Sylvia Leong (Nonpartisan)	35.8	29,431
✔		Long Jiao (Nonpartisan)	21.1	17,316
		Lakshmi Sharma (Nonpartisan)	19.3	15,887
		Doug Kunz (Nonpartisan)	17.3	14,184
	Submit photo	Nisar Ali (Nonpartisan)	3.4	2,831
	Submit photo	Rimi Khan (Nonpartisan)	3.1	2,534

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 82,183
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Kunz in this election.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Doug Kunz completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Kunz's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I have been happily married to my wife Liza for over 20 years, and am the proud father of 2 teenage boys. This year we were thrilled to see our older son graduate from Homestead High School. Our younger son is now a Sophomore. For many years now, besides my family and work commitments, I have devoted countless hours to volunteering: serving my school communities through PTA, being a positive adult role model in Scouting, and working to improve my city’s environment through its Sustainability Commission. All involve working to pass along a better world to our kids. While I am relatively new to CUSD specifically, I have long been part of the CUSD-FUHSD-SSD community and have always been active in my kids’ schools. A full list of my voluntering activities is available on my website: https://kunzforcusd.com/about-doug/

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Budget - CUSD has been in a sustained period of declining enrollment and corresponding tightening budgets. CUSD’s budget picture is stabilizing as it transitions from the attendance-based Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) to being a community-funded (“Basic Aid”) district. Funds remain tight, though, and continued wise stewardship of public resources is essential to ensure that the District can dependably deliver its services.
• Learning for the Whole Child and Global Citizenship - our kids need a high-quality and relevant education that helps them grow into well-balanced and successful adults who give back to their community. This means making sure that they master the basics of reading and math. It means fostering creativity, nurturing social/emotional health, developing character and collaboration skills. Finally, it means tying the concepts that students learn to relevant real-world challenges so that it is always clear why the skills and knowledge being taught are important. The District’s effort to define and implement its “Portrait of a Learner” is central to meeting these goals.
• Community Engagement - we are fortunate to have a community that is passionate about education, but events over the last several years - constrained budgets, school closures - have strained the ties between the community and the District. Promoting two-way communication and rebuilding trust between the community and District is essential.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I’d bring an environmental lens to the district. I'll partner with local communities to promote walking/biking to school. I'd also like to phase out school GHG emissions. When a school building's gas-fired furnace reaches end-of-life, there's no question that a new heating system should be installed. If it's replaced with a zero-emission technology such as an electric heat pump, though, the district reduces its emissions AND its operating costs. By repeatedly making the “right” decision over time we can make systematic progress. This is particularly true if we take advantage of outside funding opportunities now available from federal, state and local partners to encourage adoption of zero-emission technologies.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

My education has equipped me with skills for thinking about problems analytically. My professional experience as a Product Manager has taught me to be pragmatic, to consider and advocate for many perspectives besides my own, to balance competing priorities, and to value achieving progress over pursuing perfection. I seek to find where compromise is possible and to consider nuanced tradeoffs rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach for any given priority.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

I devoted a lot of thought to this question while serving on the Community Trustee Area Districting committee, as we facilitated changing the system by which Trustees are elected for the Fremont Union High School District (FUHSD). One of my favorite memories from that experience was collaborating with a former FUHSD Trustee on an outreach presentation slide that described the role of a school board member, which I think makes a good “textbook” definition of what school board members do:

"A School Board is Made Up of Individual Board Members that are Locally and Democratically Elected and Responsible For…
governing a set of public schools (the district);
establishing vision and climate;
ensuring the district fulfills its mission to help ALL students succeed;
managing the district’s budget and resources;
creating and maintaining policies in areas such as curriculum, facilities and other services;
recruiting and reviewing the Superintendent’s performance."

In terms of how they do it - they collaborate as a team with other board members and the Superintendent. They listen to the community and communicate feedback and concerns to district staff. They are accountable to the community for translating diffuse concepts - the community’s values, priorities and resources - into concrete facilities and plans that educate the community’s kids.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

Lost in Space by Foster the People

Who are your constituents?

In a role on the School Board, I serve three main groups of constituents: students, community and teachers/staff.

Ultimately, the reason our schools exist is to serve kids. Kids don’t get to vote, so they need adults who will step up and advocate for what they need to grow and thrive. At the end of the day I believe that kids’ education has to come first. Any conversation about priorities for the schools is a conversation about how to provide the best possible education for the greatest number of kids using the resources that are available. So when conflicts arise, it can be helpful to circle back to first principles and remind everyone that we share the same “North Star” - doing right by our community’s kids - and then work on sifting through the different perspectives about how we can best do that and what the tradeoffs are between different routes to our shared goal.

The hardest conversations will inevitably involve tough tradeoffs - asking the community for more resources, considering investments that may benefit some populations of students rather than all students, considering how to pay teachers and staff a competitive living wage while living within the District’s means. The way to approach those conversations is to constantly prepare for them - by consistently being transparent and building trust, by making wise use of resources, by being creative in looking for solutions.

How would you support the diverse needs of your district’s students, faculty, staff, and community?

It's critical to listen to members of underserved and underrepresented communities to learn about issues with which I inherently do not have firsthand experience. I know how to step back and make space for others' input, and seek to build relationships with leaders who "have the pulse" of their communities. Leading with relationships and establishing trust signals to members of our diverse communities that I will work with them to serve their students' needs, so they feel comfortable bringing issues to me as they arise.

I have a track record of removing barriers to civic engagement and representation, including chairing the Community Trustee Area Districting committee for the Fremont Union High School District, which facilitated its transition from at large to trustee area elections, opening the door for increased ethnic and geographic diversity on its board.

How will you build relationships with members of the broader community? Which groups, organizations, stakeholders will you specifically target?

It's especially important for the District to connect with community members for whom language is a barrier to full participation.

CUSD is already doing many positive things in this regard. Its website is translated into 5 languages other than English, and it recently launched a translation service using LanguageLine Solutions to make communicating with schools easier for non-English-speaking parents. Parents may specify their preferred language for district email announcements (sent through “ParentSquare”). CUSD also employs Community Liaisons to perform outreach to various cultural and linguistic communities within the District. Each school has an English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC), and a representative from that committee sits on the District ELAC.

How to improve: CUSD Board Meetings are not translated for in-person or online attendees, which strikes me as a key opportunity to make the district more open and inclusive. The district should also consider real time translation for school administrators at key school community events (e.g. Back to School Night). To learn more about this area and seek out additional ideas, I intend to build relationships with members of the District ELAC to learn about issues with which I inherently do not have firsthand experience. I commit to learning about the issues faced by all of my constituents, and to actively working to break down barriers to full inclusion as I gain insight into what needs to happen.

What organizations or individuals have endorsed your campaign?

My current list of endorsements can be found at: https://kunzforcusd.com/endorsements/

Describe your ideal learning environment for students.

On the CUSD website you often see the tagline “Every Child, Each Child, Whole Child.” This summarizes the desired big picture fairly well. An amazing school district looks after the individual learning needs of all of its students–regardless of academic performance or special needs–and does so in a way that inspires joy in learning. Joy in learning for students is only possible when teachers and staff can truly find joy and inspiration in their teaching. That will not come from “teaching to tests;” it will come from teaching to prepare future citizens of the world.

What will you do to build a relationship with parents in the district?

I'd start with the basics that all board members do: participate in Board Office Hours that are open to the community, and attend school events at the specific schools that are assigned to be my focus (board members are assigned a different set of schools each year). Beyond that, I would be available and visible: attending school and community events across the district. I have a "request a meeting" link on my website for anyone who wishes to discuss an issue or concern. If elected I intend to request that the District allow me to use the same LanguageLine translation service that is used when needed to facilitate conversations between parents and school staff. Finally, be proactive: regularly seek out meetings with parent organizations that are active in our school communities, rather than only reacting when issues arise.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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