Morgan Hill Unified School District Trustee Sarah Northrup Gadus said she was not a founding member of the Morgan Hill Education Foundation, after she claimed in a candidate statement that she helped “guide the successful launch” of the organization.
Still, one of the foundation’s founders said Gadus’s explanation falls short of the truth.
In her statement for the November election published Oct. 2 in this newspaper, Gadus wrote that she “helped guide the successful launch of our district’s Education Foundation.” The foundation held its unveiling event April 30, 2024, according to the founders. Gadus was appointed to the board in August 2024.
In an Oct. 12 email, Gadus said she did not intend to suggest she was a founder. She said she joined the foundation in its second year of operation and has helped it “grow and develop.” She apologized for any confusion or offense.
“The foundation is still in its early stages, and there is a great deal of ongoing work to establish its programs, strengthen its operations and expand the opportunities it can provide to MHUSD students,” Gadus wrote. “My wording was intended to reflect my involvement in that development, rather than the original founding.”
Cecelia Ponzini, who was a founding member of the organization but left the board in October 2024, rejected that explanation. “She lied,” Ponzini said, adding that Gadus “was nowhere around” at the foundation’s launch.
“Straight up, that is a bald-faced lie to say that she launched it,” Ponzini said. “I just don’t like the fact that she’s lying and saying that she helped launch it, because no she did not.”
MHUSD Trustee and Board President John Horner, who has served on the foundation board throughout, said Gadus joined in December 2024 through a bylaw that has the school board assign two trustees to the foundation board each year.
Horner said part of the dispute is the difference between “founding” and “launching,” noting that although she was not a founding member, Gadus made important contributions during the foundation’s early years.
“It’s still very much in its infancy, and growing,” said Horner, who is running for reelection on Nov. 3 and is a supporter of Gadus’s campaign. “Sarah has a longtime history herself of being very involved with the Home and School Club at P.A. Walsh. She brings a terrific perspective for having done—in the here and now, not 40 years ago like I did—a lot of that kind of work. Her perspective is unique and very valuable.”
The foundation was launched, he said, to pick up the slack after the previous Live Oak Foundation had sunsetted and shut down.
“We saw a need to have an entity like this,” to help raise funds for extracurriculars, Horner said. “I like to say our unofficial tagline is ‘The extras are essential.’ Extracurriculars, field trips, all of those things that are not a required part of education—anyone who has been to school knows, that’s the stuff that makes a huge difference.”
