In this issue, a look at the African American honor roll, an educator profile, budget challenges and foster youth services, Daveed Diggs makes a school visit, remembering the state takeover, reviewing a misleading presentation from the OUSD board, A study from PACE on the financial effects of charters, a look at the state finances, NAACP branches break with the state org over charters, the importance of experienced teachers and more, please read, share and get involved
Oakland:
- Oakland school district holds annual African American honor roll celebration
- Heart of an Organizer, Blood of an Educator: Amethod’s Jorge Lopez
- How We’ve Invested in Teacher Retention
- AICRC Summer Camp
- School budget woes strain the bonds between Oakland foster youth and their case managers
- Oakland’s African American Honor Roll Students Focus Of OUSD Event
- Oakland Unified’s journey: When the state stepped in, ‘we lost all local control’
- Daveed Diggs comes home to rap with kids at his adopted West Oakland school
- As Charters Face Growing Opposition, NewSchools Summit Makes Its Case
- Head Coach of Oakland High School Girls Basketball Team Wins Three Different Honors as Coach of the Year
- Does the OUSD Board Understand Anything About School Finance? The Latest Presentation to the State Would Say NO
- How OUSD Can Practically Reduce Charter School Growth and Help Educators and Families
- ‘Oakland Goes Outdoors:’ $1M grant to fund outdoor education for Oakland middle schoolers
- The Predator, The Snake, and The Thief; Why I Couldn’t Wait to Get Away from Paradise
- Lifting children and families out of poverty
- Oakland City Council Gives $1.2 Million To OUSD, Rejects Measure AA Tax
California:
- Third consecutive year in school spending increases marked a “full recovery” from the recession
- NAACP CHAPTERS BREAK RANKS OVER CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS
- Classes without heat. Sports cut. Sacramento: Is Oakland’s school chaos your future?
- California schools haven’t fully embraced laws protecting LGBTQ kids, study shows
- Analysis: California charters affect spending at district schools — but not by much
- Charter Competition and District Finances: Evidence from California Students
- Gov. Newsom proposes tighter rules on charter school enrollment
- California school board members to state lawmakers: Don’t make it harder to attract and recruit diverse, talented teachers
- Outrage Over Sick Teachers Paying for Their Own Substitutes Sparks Calls for Reform
- PACE Webinar: Understanding the school impact on academic and social emotional learning: Lessons from the CORE districts
- Experienced teachers key in California districts that ‘beat the odds’
Other Stories:
- Bad Apples in Charter Admissions and What We Can Do
- What can be done to stop the criminalization of black girls? Rebuild the system
- Chris Stewart: It’s Been 65 Years. Maybe It’s Time to Stop Expecting the Promise of Brown v. Board to Be Fulfilled
- 2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than deployed service members
- Mental Health Issues Account for Largest Percentage of Hospitalizations Among Youth
- Living Integration, The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Going to Their Schools
- Homework in High School: How Much Is Too Much?
Resources:
How You Can Help:
Oakland:
- Oakland school district holds annual African American honor roll celebration-Monday was a big night for many middle and high school students and their families in Oakland. The Oakland Unified School District’s annual African American Honor Roll Celebration took place at Acts Full Gospel Church in East Oakland.
- Heart of an Organizer, Blood of an Educator: Amethod’s Jorge Lopez
- How the Richmond-born leader made a lasting impact on so many students and schools, and went from high school dropout to CEO
- How We’ve Invested in Teacher Retention
- It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, a perfect time to celebrate our community’s amazing educators. Superintendent Johnson-Trammell wrote this week that teachers are the backbone of our school communities, and we couldn’t agree more. The recent teacher strikes drove home this reality even more clearly – to realize our North Star requires us to retain our teachers better, which means not only greater compensation, but also additional supports for teachers and students.
- AICRC Summer Camp
- American Indian Child Resource Summer Camp
- School budget woes strain the bonds between Oakland foster youth and their case managers
- There are just under 400 foster youth attending Oakland schools, and for many, one person at their school is dedicated to them: their case manager. This counselor provides support and offers one-on-one guidance—academically and for other issues that may arise outside of school. The Oakland Unified School District has four case managers for foster youth, but their jobs were threatened in March, when the school board passed budget cuts eliminating their positions.
- Oakland’s African American Honor Roll Students Focus Of OUSD Event
- On Monday evening, May 13, thousands of students, families and educators will come together at Oakland’s Acts Full Gospel Church for the 18th Annual African American Honor Roll Celebration.
- Oakland Unified’s journey: When the state stepped in, ‘we lost all local control’
- Sacramento City Unified School District is scrambling to plug a $35 million budget hole, with a possible state takeover looming if it can’t balance its books by June. Nearby Oakland Unified went into receivership in 2003, one of only nine California districts since 1990 to declare insolvency and submit to state control. Here’s what happened, and how the story is still unfolding.
- Daveed Diggs comes home to rap with kids at his adopted West Oakland school
- The students of Vincent Academy in West Oakland aren’t old enough to have seen Daveed Diggs’ most celebrated works, like his Oakland-centric film “Blindspotting” or his turn as part of the original cast in the award-winning musical “Hamilton,” but these kids do recognize him.
- As Charters Face Growing Opposition, NewSchools Summit Makes Its Case
- Each year, the invite-only NewSchools Summit spotlights the latest school models, leaders and technologies that aim to serve underrepresented students and communities.
- Head Coach of Oakland High School Girls Basketball Team Wins Three Different Honors as Coach of the Year
- This has been a big year for Orlando Gray, which he has rounded out in dramatic fashion by bringing home to Oakland some major state recognition. The Oakland High School Girls Basketball Head Coach has won California Coach of the Year from both CalHi Sports and MaxPreps.
- Does the OUSD Board Understand Anything About School Finance? The Latest Presentation to the State Would Say NO
- If anyone needed an argument for a state takeover of OUSD, they inadvertently got one from Director Eng’s recent presentation to the State Charter Task Force in which she seemed to completely misunderstand school finance. If you wonder why the Board and district have been mired in mismanagement, chasing their tails and continually failing to address root issues.
- How OUSD Can Practically Reduce Charter School Growth and Help Educators and Families
- Oakland has tried and failed several strategies to reduce charter school growth. Here I offer some free consulting (“POP” the sound of OUSD heads exploding) and two practical ways the district can reduce or even stop the growth of charters here.
- ‘Oakland Goes Outdoors:’ $1M grant to fund outdoor education for Oakland middle schoolers
- Oakland Unified School District wants to make outdoor education part of the curriculum for all 6th through 8th grade students.
- The Predator, The Snake, and The Thief; Why I Couldn’t Wait to Get Away from Paradise
- Snakes in the jungle, predator in the streets, thief in my home…All were gathered under one roof and called me nephew. Guatemala is a wonderful place for a third world country: drinking age is never enforced; white folks are treated as walking banks, and reggaeton is the soundtrack to the lustful poverty.
- Lifting children and families out of poverty
- Clarissa Dutherd, executive director of Oakland Parent Voices, discusses the “Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty” bus tour
- Oakland City Council Gives $1.2 Million To OUSD, Rejects Measure AA Tax
- On Tuesday, April 16th the Oakland City Council took extraordinary action to save critical services that include, the restorative justice program, the foster youth case management program and school libraries from shutting down or significant service reductions that were adopted during OUSD’s recent budget cuts.
California:
- Third consecutive year in school spending increases marked a “full recovery” from the recession
- California drove national spending increases in education while New Jersey retreated from earlier efforts to give extra money to low-income schools
- NAACP CHAPTERS BREAK RANKS OVER CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS
- Three Southern California Chapters of the NAACP—San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties—recently broke from NAACP National which 107th National Convention in 2016, not only called for a moratorium on Charter School expansion but also pressed for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.
- Classes without heat. Sports cut. Sacramento: Is Oakland’s school chaos your future?
- School closures. Deep cuts to sports and extracurricular programs. Chaos and constant leadership turnover. Those were just some of the consequences when Oakland Unified School District went bust and submitted to state takeover in 2003 – a fate that Sacramento city schools are scrambling to avoid.
- California schools haven’t fully embraced laws protecting LGBTQ kids, study shows
- In the past decade, California has adopted more than a half-dozen laws intended to prevent bullying, strengthen suicide prevention and cultivate inclusive learning environments for LGBTQ students in the state’s public schools. But the state’ school districts are implementing these new laws inconsistently, according to a new sweeping report-card style analysis from the Equality California Institute.
- Analysis: California charters affect spending at district schools — but not by much
- The paper comes as the California Teachers Association is pushing for state lawmakers to approve a package of bills that would set limits on the growth of charter schools in the state, which was the second after Minnesota to pass a charter school law.
- Charter Competition and District Finances: Evidence from California Students
- Charter schools enroll a growing share of public school students, leading to concerns about the financial implications of charter schools for traditional public schools
- Gov. Newsom proposes tighter rules on charter school enrollment
- State law already requires that a charter school admit any student who applies. In his May budget revision, Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to tighten the language banning discrimination in charter school enrollment, particularly to protect students with disabilities and students with poor grades who want to attend charter schools.
- California school board members to state lawmakers: Don’t make it harder to attract and recruit diverse, talented teachers
- Education is the cornerstone of our communities, fueling progress and development in our cities and our state for generations to come. As elected school board members in large California cities, we want young people in our communities to have access to strong public schools that will allow them to lead successful, fulfilling lives. To this end, the single most important ingredient for strong public schools is high-quality classroom teachers.
- Outrage Over Sick Teachers Paying for Their Own Substitutes Sparks Calls for Reform
- A 40-year-old law requiring public school teachers on extended sick leave to pay for their substitutes is under scrutiny by some state lawmakers after KQED reported on the practice.
- PACE Webinar: Understanding the school impact on academic and social emotional learning: Lessons from the CORE districts
- key aspect of California’s new policy approach is a multiple measures data system that includes local measures of school performance. As school districts across California consider what to measure and how to measure it, there is much to be learned from the CORE districts.
- Experienced teachers key in California districts that ‘beat the odds’
- Research released this week identified 156 California school districts with higher test scores in math and English language arts than expected for African-American and Hispanic students and found that teacher experience was the common factor that contributed to the higher results.
Other Stories:
- Bad Apples in Charter Admissions and What We Can Do
- Some time ago, at a charter school near you, I went to enroll a foster child, let’s call her ”Keasha.” She needed a good school; that was smaller and more personalized…She then told Keasha that she needed to take an “admissions test”, a series of math problems. An “admission test” or other preconditions to enrollment in a charter school is illegal, they are public schools and, by law, must admit any student who applies if there is space, holding a lottery if there are more students than spots.
- What can be done to stop the criminalization of black girls? Rebuild the system
- Black girls are being criminalized at alarming rates. Experts say there are ways to make sure that doesn’t happen.
- Chris Stewart: It’s Been 65 Years. Maybe It’s Time to Stop Expecting the Promise of Brown v. Board to Be Fulfilled
- very few years, there is a predictable tide of articles proclaiming that it’s the anniversary of Brown v. Board and our schools are still just as segregated as they were when the landmark decision was handed down in 1954.
- 2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than deployed service members
- The school shooting near Houston on Friday bolstered a stunning statistic: More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while deployed as members of the military.
- Mental Health Issues Account for Largest Percentage of Hospitalizations Among Youth
- The highest percentage of hospitalizations among youth ages 0-17 in California was for mental health reasons in 2017. Mental diseases and disorders accounted for 14% of hospitalizations, as measured by discharges.
- Living Integration, The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Going to Their Schools
- It’s 65 years after Brown v. Board, the legendary court case that “outlawed” segregation. Looking at schools across the country you would hardly know it. As a living artifact of “integration” I can attest to the good, the bad, and the ugly, the costs and the value, and hopefully reflect on a better way.
- Homework in High School: How Much Is Too Much?
- It’s not hard to find a high school student who is stressed about homework. Many are stressed to the max–juggling extracurricular activities, jobs, and family responsibilities. It can be hard for many students, particularly low-income students, to find the time to dedicate to homework. So students in the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs program at YouthBeat in Oakland, California are asking what’s a fair amount of homework for high school students?
Resources:
- Event Summary: Chronic Absence Working Session
- Chronic absence is a key barrier to achievement for many students in Oakland and other undeserved communities. In this working session we will share tools and protocols for school teams to analyze the current year’s chronic absence data. Using this information, school teams will identify steps that can be taken between now and the beginning of the 19-20 school year to help improve overall attendance and decrease chronic absence.
How You Can Help:
- Equal Playing Field for McClymonds Girls Tennis
- Located in West Oakland, McClymonds High School predominantly serves socioeconomically underserved youth of color. For our three years as a team, our Lady Warriors Tennis Team has played without netted courts or proper equipment. Your contribution will go towards refurnishing tennis courts, uniforms, transportation to games and practices, and equipment necessary to keep our tennis program up and running into the 2019-2020 school year and beyond.
What do you think?