Shannon Elderon began attending Schools Group meetings at BAA’s Mountain View office in 1999 when she was a freshman at Palo Alto High School. Like many teens in a new school, Shannon felt ostracized. Unlike most, she spoke about it openly, and even sought remedy. She wrote a letter to the editors of Paly’s student newspaper in March 2000, stating, “I’ve concluded that this school has a serious attitude problem. Students tease, make fun of and ostracize those who are different. Yes, I know this is ‘the way things are in the real world,’ but that doesn’t justify this cruelty.”

“Not only are students frighteningly intolerant, but teachers, too, are often not open to new ideas,” she wrote. “They cling to their assumptions and refuse to take seriously others’ perspectives.

She closed her letter with an appeal for both students and adults to do better: “I do not feel accepted and supported here at Paly. Perhaps you will say that this is the fate of teenagers in high school. But even if that’s true, it’s not right, and we should be doing more to help out peers, rather than devoting all of our energies to trying to make them miserable.”

Perhaps Shannon found some solace in the accepting environment of the BAA Schools Group. She happily volunteered for numerous projects and events, including Saturday habitat restoration at Arastradero Preserve, protesting The Gap alongside other Schoolies, and she helped organize events such as 2000’s Rock the Earth concert, Paly’s Earth Day, and Deep Green Global Training.

She’s remembered for her wry wit and snarky humor, her constantly changing hair, and her ready smile.

Post BAA

After high school Shannon earned her BA in English from the University of Oregon and an MAT in Teaching of English from Stanford University. She later completed her MA in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati, where she also taught as a graduate instructor.“

“Teaching undergrad creative writing is kind of like what I imagined teaching would be like before I became a teacher: the students happy to be there, eager to learn, pens poised, lots of them contributing to the discussion, great insights,” she wrote in 2013. “It’s almost disconcerting.”

Shannon taught English at Gunn High School and other schools in the Palo Alto Unified School District, inspiring students with her love of language and literature. She also contributed to educational publishing as an assistant editor at Cengage Learning and later worked as a curriculum designer for IXL Learning in San Mateo. She reviewed books for The Rumpus, one of the longest-running online literary magazines.

Shannon bravely battled depression for over 16 years, according to her mother. She passed away in August 2016. Her family encouraged those wishing to honor Shannon’s memory to support mental health advocacy, such as through the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).