This is The Milpitas Beat’s first-ever political endorsement.
The Beat hereby endorses candidate Minh Ngo in his race to become a Milpitas Unified School District (MUSD) School Board Trustee. Mr. Ngo boasts an impressive track record, from his strong involvement in an MUSD Parent Teacher Organization to his personal background to his professional career.
Ngo (age 38), a Vietnamese- and Chinese-American, holds a Director-Level Division Supervisor position in the finance industry, setting policies and procedures around the investment of clients’ personal funds. His wife of 10 years and partner of 18 years, Jennifer, works as an IT Strategic Sourcing Specialist. They are raising 3 children — ages 6, 3, and 2 — in Milpitas.
At age 11, with budding political consciousness, Ngo cultivated a position against Prop 174, so as to avoid an imbalanced educational environment in California, wherein parents of greater means could pay to place their kids in better schools, leaving less fortunate families with less enticing educational options.
Ngo rose up quickly to his current professional position, in which the responsible allocation of funds is a central daily focus. Accordingly, he’s focused on responsible spending on the part of MUSD, and envisions a district that maximizes every opportunity, from providing the best schools to offering top-notch educational programs to continuously attracting the finest teachers.
Last year, when a School Board seat opened up and MUSD sought applicants so as to avoid a costly Special Election, Ngo felt that his voice was needed. He applied and was appointed by the Board to the seat, but activists who were disgruntled about small details of the appointment process spurred a Special Election anyway, one that’s costing MUSD over $100,000.
Ngo has Board experience, having already served on the School Board for 2 months. He has no political ambitions beyond Board service. His family moved here because of the excellent educational system, and Ngo is driven to participate in its continued growth and progress.
This candidate is an organizer, a participant in community service, a leader, and an adapter to change — the latter being of particular importance to him, as our education practices shift and thus call for adaptation.
He runs with a mind toward our homeless students, whom he hopes to connect with city, county, and school services, so as to grant them a smoother path in their formative years. He’s mindful of the traffic issues around our schools. He keeps an eye on the power of coursework in STEAM, yet he values the arts as an underrated resource for those on the path to technology careers, as he acknowledges the arts’ power when it comes to driving innovation and cultivating critical thinking.
This Special Election has been tense and heightened. The Milpitas Beat believes in Minh Ngo’s potential power as a unifier and a grounded, steady presence on the School Board.
Years ago, at UC Santa Cruz, as his future wife, a junior transfer student, sought a building at night on a pitch black campus (out in the redwoods, without the presence of lights), she met a boy who generously helped to guide her, literally from the darkness to the light. As it happened, the building she sought was the library, and in Jennifer’s first encounter with her future husband, Minh, he helped her to locate an institution of learning.
When Minh Ngo lost his Board seat, he immediately signed up to run for it as a candidate. His initial motivations had not changed, but he did now feel a need to right a wrong. In that way, his campaign, in addition to being about Milpitas children’s education, is also concerned with justice.
We cite now an old Latin phrase, from the realm of the law: Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum.
It means justice must be sought regardless of other consequences (in this case, the outrage of embittered activists). In translation of the Latin, the words go as follows: Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
Vote for Minh Ngo in the MUSD School Board Special Election.
