Meet Darshana Patel, the scientist shaping education in the California Legislature

A first-term Assembly member with a scientist’s temperament and a veteran school board member’s blend of pragmatism and empathy will lead the Assembly Education Committee.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas appointed Darshana Patel, a Democrat from northern San Diego County, to the position, effective March 2. She will also serve on the Budget Committee’s key Subcommittee on Education Finance.

Patel will succeed Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, whose removal from the committee in his final year in the Assembly will deny him visibility and influence in his campaign for state superintendent of public instruction. There is some precedent for replacing termed-out committee chairs, according to Rivas’ office, which declined further comment on why the speaker decided to remove Muratsuchi.

Those who observed or worked with Patel as she threw herself full time into navigating the challenges of Poway Unified School District as a school board member and in additional county education roles said they found her leadership inspiring.

“She brings a really rare combination of deep intelligence and very steady judgment,” said Debra Schade, the president of the California School Boards Association and longtime Solana Beach School District board member, who served with Patel as county delegates to CSBA.  

“There’s a lot going on in public education; we’re really being tested in several different directions,” Schade said. “I think her leadership will really meet the moment.”

Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff, who preceded Patel’s 2016 election to the Poway Unified board and is now its president, summed up Patel’s qualities this way: “Things at a school district level are one part data and one part heart. She really has both, but the scientist piece of her made her very focused on bringing data in all the time.”

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Patel, 51, grew up with two older brothers in San Diego, where the family struggled financially off and on when her father, a civil engineer, was out of work. During those periods, Patel said, she went without necessary dental care and glasses, and the family lacked health insurance, including when her mother died unexpectedly from an undiagnosed medical condition. Patel was a high school freshman, and the death inspired her to go into biotech research. A talk with her mock trial coach at Apple Valley High School affirmed that decision.  

The teacher confided that her own mother had died of cancer, Patel said. “And she looked at me and said, ‘If you’re not going be a powerful lawyer who becomes a Supreme Court justice, can you at least cure cancer?’ ”

Given that binary choice, she earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Occidental College and a Ph.D. in biophysics from UC Irvine, then moved to the Bay Area for postdoctoral research, followed by eight years at Genentech, working on novel cancer therapeutics.

Then, in 2009, nearly 21 years after her mother’s passing, her father died while waiting for prior insurance authorization — in the same ICU unit, in the same hospital in Apple Valley where her mother died. “It was this moment for me: I am developing novel cancer therapeutics to save lives, and I can’t even save my dad from just getting known, established treatment that he needed,” she said.

It coincided with the Great Recession, when colleagues faced threats to National Institutes of Health grants. Now the parents of three daughters, she and her husband decided to move back to San Diego, where by scaling back, they could live on one income, and she could answer a lingering question, “Where can I make the greatest good?”

Her answer: “There are many brilliant scientists, but not an overwhelming number of people who can effectively talk about complex science policy and how science affects the world around us,” she said.  “We have to communicate the value of our work; otherwise, society will choose not to fund it.”

A pivot to a professional volunteer

She became a “professional volunteer,” doing work on the town council of Rancho Peñasquitos, the area of San Diego where they lived, and as the science chair for the local high school foundation, helping to fund science labs and professional development for teachers.

Those were turbulent years for Poway Unified, a largely suburban district with 40 schools, which, unknown to voters, had issued a capital appreciation bond whose balloon payments obligated the district to pay $1 billion in interest on a $105 million principal. The Legislature quickly outlawed that form of school district borrowing, though too late for Poway taxpayers. Then, in 2015, the board uncovered financial malfeasance and fired the superintendent.

Patel was elected to the five-member board in 2016. “I had people in the community that pushed me to run,” she said.  “They liked the way I asked questions on the planning board, the way I was collegial, but direct.”

Rebuilding public trust started with regaining financial stability. The board asked the state financial agency, FCMAT, to analyze the district’s special education program; the report had 70 recommendations, and the board adopted many of them. That stirred Patel’s awareness of the unmet needs of students with disabilities, which, since her election in 2024, has become a focus of her work in the Assembly.

Covid was a setback. As in many districts — only with more intensity — tempers flared at school board meetings, with disruptions by parents angered by extended school closures and mask mandates when students returned. Patel responded with diplomacy.

“She really set a good tone, especially when she was board president during turbulent issues. She was very calm,” said fellow board member O’Connor-Ratcliff.  “I can’t think of one time, when she was holding the gavel, that she was upset visibly or audibly.”

Colleagues on the San Diego County School Board Association paid attention during presentations she gave. “She worked really hard to have us all understand what processes and procedures to put in place to deal with very aggressive people,” said CSBA President Schade.

Credit: Courtesy of Assemblymember Darshana Patel’s office

Covid drew more attention to students’ behavioral and mental health needs. Patel was instrumental in establishing the Mental Wellness and  Connections Committee at Westview High, which brought in therapy dogs, set up a crisis and intervention center open all day on campus and expanded resources and programs for parents and students. Patel is a compassionate and empathetic person, said Christi Papworth, a neighbor who helped establish Mental Wellness and Connections, and through the committee’s outreach to students, “she saw how many students were struggling.” 

In December, Patel and a colleague on a select Assembly committee on student mental health organized a lengthy hearing in the district with multiple panels to learn more about how mental health services are currently offered and could be improved.

Her goals for Assembly Ed

With a deadline for introducing new bills in early March, Patel is still lining up co-authors, but she said her themes will be streamlining bureaucracy facing school districts to free up time and money for the classroom, and providing more resources for students with disabilities to learn in an inclusive environment.

In the same vein, her mission will not be to pass big new programs but, through more base funding for districts, to address student achievement by filling in gaps in the programs that Gov. Gavin Newsom created — a top priority of the School Boards Association, too.  

“With public education, we want to do the right thing. But when you have (universal transitional kindergarten) rolling out, we didn’t have money to convert our facilities with playgrounds and bathrooms for 4-year-olds. We saw universal meals rolled out, but we didn’t have the workers in our community to fill those positions, where the average rent is much higher than what a part-time, split-shift food and nutrition worker could bring home. With the rollout of EV (electric) buses, we don’t have the mechanics that know how to work on the electric vehicles,” she said.

“Schools are being tasked to do more and more without significantly more money, or the money is not distributed in a way that parallels the increase in cost,” Patel said.  “I want to guide the conversations around feasibility and implementation with a mindful eye that if we want to do well-intentioned policies right, they have to come with the appropriate amount of time and money.”

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