The Oakland Education Week in Review: 2/3-2/10

Last week, OUSD is getting creative on housing, great stuff from the ELLMA office, looking at challenges to Oakland Ed, the messed up conditions at Frick, rethinking juvenile hall, OUSD’s structural deficit and the annual layoff cycle, the upcoming bond and more, please read, share and get involved

Oakland:

California:

Other Stories:

Resources:

How You Can Help:

Oakland:

  • Holy Crap, OUSD, and Partners, Are Getting Creative on Housing
    • After years of stagnation, one of Oakland’s largest landowners is finally taking on one of Oakland’s biggest challenges, housing.  Two incredibly important events recently took place that hopefully signal a new era, where we move beyond the gridlock of fussing and fighting and get together to do something for the families, students, and staff that really need our support.
  • PROGRESS REPORTED AS COLLABORATIVE WORK CONTINUES BETWEEN ACOE AND OUSD ON DISTRICT FISCAL VITALITY PLAN
    • Having made significant progress in multiple areas addressed in Oakland Unified School District’s (OUSD) Fiscal Vitality Plan, the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) and OUSD are continuing the collaboration in which ACOE provides intensive support and technical assistance for OUSD’s fiscal operations.
  • First Week of February is Busy Across OUSD with Numerous Events Including Celebrations of Black History, the District’s Annual Spelling Bee and Calls for More Funding For Education
    • The first week of February is a special one across OUSD for several important reasons. It starts with the fact that February is Black History Month, which coincides with several events this week. First off, it’s African American Read In Week, in which volunteers from wide-ranging industries will be visiting our schools to read to our students. With critical support from the Oakland Public Education Fund, this is a great opportunity for students to meet people they might not otherwise meet, and hear their perspectives on school, work, life, and literature. It also gives the adults a wonderful opportunity to bond with our kids.
  • ELLMA News: Connecting and Sharing in February 2020
    • In this newsletter, we will dig into the 4th of the Essential Practices for ELL Achievement: taking an asset-based approach. 
  • Inside the Black Panther Archives: An Evening with Fredrika Newton
    • During Inside the Black Panther Archives: An Evening with Fredrika Newton, Mrs. Newton shares her personal leadership vision to realize a Black Panther Party legacy monument and a digitally immersive museum in Oakland. The conversation takes place at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland on Wednesday, February 12th at 7pm. Tickets are free and open to the public and will be made available via Wine & Bowties social media platforms and the eventbrite.
  • From Lighthouse to Law School
    • Eduardo Figueroa never even thought about college until Lighthouse. Now he’s studying law at UC Hastings
  • The Top 10 Biggest Changes in Oakland public education in the last decade
    • I’ve been working with Oakland public schools for 20 years – long enough to watch several classes of children start kindergarten and then too few go on to college; long enough to see what it takes to improve a struggling system; and long enough to recognize that our history must inform our path forward. After reading other Top 10 retrospective lists over the last couple of months, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the last decade in Oakland public education (in roughly chronological order):
  • Into the Archives: Black Panther Party Demonstration in Oakland
    • KRON-TV  news footage from July 7th 1969 with reporter Mike Mills featuring  scenes from an anti-fascist demonstration outside the Alameda County  Administration Building in Oakland, at 1221 Oak Street, by groups including the Peace and Freedom Party and the Black Panther Party.  Includes views of Black Panthers marching and singing, of Bobby Seale speaking and an interview with a man who describes a meeting they just  had with the District Attorney.
  • California Cops Handcuff 16-year-old Boy with Autism While He Was Having a Seizure 
    • A California woman says that instead of helping her 16-year-old autistic son when he was having a series of seizures, Fresno police hit and handcuffed him while the family was at a fast food restaurant.
  • Oakland Unified superintendent recommends laying off more than 68 staffers to close budget gap
    • Oakland Unified Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell has proposed to lay off more than 68 staffers to come up with more than half of the $21.5 million that the district says it needs to cut from next year’s budget.
  • A school played ‘The Lion King’ at a fundraising event. Now it has to pay a third of what it raised
    • When an elementary school in Berkeley, California, hosted a “parent’s night out” fundraiser, they didn’t think playing the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” would do anything besides keep the kids happy.
  • Black Teacher Project – Bay Area Text Study Group – Hope and Healing in Urban Education
    • Greetings Black teachers and educators! We are excited to be hosting our second Bay Area Text Study of this school year. This semester, we will focus on concepts from Shawn Ginwright’s book Hope and Healing in Urban Education: How Urban Activists and Teachers are Reclaiming Matters of the Heart. Learn from Ginwright as he proposes a new movement of healing justice to repair the damage done by the erosion of hope resulting from structural violence in urban communities and schools. Join us for this eight week series that will deepen your practice and enrich your teaching toolkit in fellowship with Black teachers and educators like yourself.
  • What the F is Happening at Frick? And Why Aren’t We Doing Anything–The Real Conspiracy
    • I know you all love conspiracies.  I got one. It goes back hundreds of years and involves the most powerful interests in the country.  And whether they know it or not, most people are actively or tacitly involved. And you can see the strange fruits of it everywhere.  Don’t believe me? Look down the street at Frick Impact Academy.
  • Envisioning Freedom, Reimaging Justice: Community Meeting
    • Come out on Thursday Feb 6th from 5:30pm – 8pm to find out how we can work to stop Alameda County from spending an estimated $75 million to rebuild the juvenile probation camp at 100 beds when there are less than 15 youth held there. And learn more about how we can fight to stop mass incarceration in our county by holding county officials accountable!! 
  • Strong Oversight, Not Just Hindsight, For Oakland School Construction Funds
    • Our school district has aging buildings and changing needs, and the school construction fund has run out of money to pay for them. The solution would be for the voters to pass a construction bond measure to replenish the fund. But voters are rightly skeptical: a recent Alameda County Grand Jury report told many stories of financial misdeeds, many of them related to this same fund.
  • Girls Policy Agenda Community Report Back – Oakland
    • Join us for a community report back on Alliance for Girls’ inaugural #GirlsPolicyAgenda. Alliance for Girls, the nation’s largest regional alliance of girl-serving organizations, are hosting a community meeting to share updates and get feedback on our #GirlsPolicyAgenda to enhance safety on public transportation, support young moms, establish a state gender responsive fund, and center participatory decision-making in government agencies that center girls’ voices
  • Editorial: Alameda County’s Measure C deserves your vote
    • Measure C asks the voters of Alameda County to approve a half-cent sales tax for two critical measures of child welfare: health (about 20% of the tax revenue would go toward expanding free and low-cost health care and emergency services at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland) and welfare (the remaining 80% funds child care and preschool programs).
  • Oakland Unified Tells Students & Staff Who Recently Visited China to Stay Home
    • KCBS Radio’s Matt Bigler reports from Oakland where the school district is telling students and staff who recently visited China to stay home as a precaution.
  • Oakland school teaches lesson in helping the homeless
    • Instead of sitting behind desks Thursday afternoon, a class of McClymonds High School students took to the streets of West Oakland to learn first-hand about one of their neighborhood’s biggest struggles — homelessness.
  • The Pioneering Black Historian Who Was Almost Erased From History
    • It’s Black History Month, which is a good time to reflect on whose stories are repeated or forgotten, whose work is celebrated and why. So today we’re highlighting the work of Delilah L. Beasley, an important — but largely unsung — black historian, a woman who spent years traveling the state to document black life in California.
  • Hennessy Pound Cake, Long Commutes and Filmmaking
    • A few years ago, filmmaker Danielle Thompson and her family were evicted from their home in Oakland and moved to Pittsburg, a city 40 miles away. Using that experience as fuel, Danielle produced her first documentary film, Displaced.
  • Oakland NAACP: Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics
    • Oakland High School students: the Oakland NAACP is hosting an Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) in March. 
  • Oakland to lead school field trip Saturday — to San Quentin State Prison
    • Students from several Oakland schools will meet early Saturday morning for what district officials hope is an illuminating field trip to a place they’ll never want to return: San Quentin State Prison.

California:

  • California school officials reassure immigrant parents after ruling limiting benefits
    • If your child attends public school or eats school lunch, it won’t hurt your application for permanent residency. That’s the message school officials across California are trying to send to parents after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that the Trump administration can begin using new rules to deny permanent residency, or green cards, based on whether an immigrant is likely to use certain public benefits, such as food stamps or public health insurance. The court has not ruled on the merits of the new rules, but is allowing them to go into effect, while lawsuits move through lower courts.
  • What California voters need to know about proposed $15 billion school construction bond: a quick guide
    • The March 3 California ballot includes a $15 billion state bond issue to help schools, community colleges and universities with construction costs for their facilities. Last fall, the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom placed the measure on the ballot by approving Assembly Bill 48.  It will appear on the ballot as Proposition 13.
  • Advocates for Science-Based Reading Instruction Worry California Plan Sends the Wrong Message
    • Early-reading advocates in California have raised concerns about a forthcoming state literacy plan, arguing that some of the instructional approaches to be included aren’t sufficiently aligned to research and won’t lead to success for many students.
  • California’s charter schools in a precarious state
    • Charter schools in California should have known a tough time was ahead when charter advocates spent around $62 million backing the wrong candidates in 2018.
  • Report: Foster care students require academic, financial support from schools for college success
    • Youth in the California foster care system face more barriers during the transition from high school to college than their non-foster-care peers, according to an Educational Results Partnership and California College Pathways report. The barriers include greater school mobility, suspensions, exclusions and missed school days.
  • Mind the achievement gap: California’s disparities in education, explained
    • Few goals in education have been as frustrating and urgent as the effort to fix the deep, generational disparity in achievement between the haves and the have-nots in California schools.
  • We must include English learners in early education plan for California
    • As Gov. Gavin Newsom’s team pulls together the components of the Master Plan for Early Education and Care, considers top priorities for the proposed California Department of Early Childhood Development, and continues to push for investments in our educator workforce, it should consider this fundamental fact: Today, 60 percent of all California children, birth to 5-years-old, come from homes where their families speak one or more languages other than English.
  • Newsom wants to halt physical fitness test due to bullying, gender issues
    • California students would stop taking a mandatory physical fitness test under a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom intended to protect children from body shaming, bullying and gender identity discrimination.
  • Group seeks to close achievement gap for California’s black students
    • The Fortune School of Education and the National Action Network said they hope new research proves how to close the education achievement gap for black students in California.
  • California’s schools chief states his position as his department revises ethnic studies curriculum
    • In a preview of what it will recommend this spring, the California Department of Education is siding with ethnic studies advocates who argue that courses should focus on four ethnic and racial groups whose histories have been largely overlooked in the high school curriculum: African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, and Native Americans.
  • California’s stubborn ‘achievement gap’
    • Sooner or later, reality rears its ugly head and that seems to be happening with the state’s very expensive — but apparently failing — efforts to close a yawning “achievement gap” among the state’s nearly 6 million elementary and secondary school students.
  • California school district builds affordable housing for teachers
    • A California school district is trying to help combat the high cost of living for its teachers by building affordable employee housing.
  • Two Schools in Marin County
    • Last year, the California Attorney General held a tense press conference at a tiny elementary school in the one working class, black neighborhood of the mostly wealthy and white Marin County. His office had concluded that the local district “knowingly and intentionally” maintained a segregated school, violating the 14th amendment. He ordered them to fix it, but for local officials and families, the path forward remains unclear, as is the question: what does “equal protection” mean?
  • Poll: Voters, skeptical of school quality, support more funding
    • In winter 2019, strikes by Los Angeles and Oakland teachers dominated headlines. Teachers in both cities ultimately won more pay and support staff, but the strikes also presented an opportunity for additional change. The Los Angeles Times editorial board, for instance, wrote that the L.A. strike “put the importance of a quality education front and center in the public psyche. The urgency and attention generated by the strike must not now be allowed to fade.”

Other Stories:

  • Slaveowners Got Reparations For Financial Loss After Emancipation. Enslaved African-Americans Got Nothing
    • White Americans opposed to paying reparations to descendants of slaves might not realize their ancestors received them after their slaves were freed. According to an op-ed by professor Tera Hunter in the New York Times, President Abraham Lincoln paid white Union loyalists up to $300 for every enslaved person freed. The reparations were made through the District of Columbia Emancipation Act.
  • ‘All I Want To Do Is Be Somebody’: Henry Winkler On Lifelong Struggle With Dyslexia
    • Most of us know him as The Fonz. Or Barry Zuckerkorn. Or, much more recently, Gene Cousineau. But Henry Winkler says his proudest professional achievement is as a writer of children’s books. And he’s unveiling the 29th in his “Hank Zipzer” series, co-authored with Lin Oliver, about a second-grade boy with dyslexia.
  • Taking time to reflect on how deeply slavery has shaped our society
    • This year’s Black History Month is much more than 29 days devoted to recognizing Black Americans’ history, culture, and contributions to the United States. It is part of a broader reflection and commemoration of one of the darkest events in our United States history – the 400th anniversary of the inhumane and involuntary arrival of the first enslaved Africans to the British colonies. Around the country – and here on campus through the 400 Years campus initiative – we are taking time to reflect on how deeply slavery has shaped all aspects of our society and led to injustices that continue to affect Black people throughout the U.S. today.

Resources:

  • Elementary Schools that Black Families Should Consider Based on the Latest Data
    • Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make.  The new school quality data was released by the state recently, and I wanted to highlight some of the schools making progress with Oakland children, and encourage families to visit.  Every child is different, and I will break it down into subgroups (schools showing progress with Black, Brown and low income students) in the next few weeks and you can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.
  • Middle Schools that Black Families Should Consider Based on the Latest Data
    • Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make.  The new school quality data was released by the state recently, and I wanted to highlight some of the schools making progress with Oakland children, and encourage families to visit.  Every child is different, and I will break it down into subgroups (schools showing progress with Black, Brown and low income students) in the next few weeks and you can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.
  • High Schools that Oakland Families Should Consider Based on the Latest Data
    • Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make.  The new school quality data was released by the state recently, and I wanted to highlight some of the schools making progress with Oakland children, and encourage families to visit.  Every child is different, and I will break it down into subgroups (schools showing progress with Black, Brown and low income students) in the next few weeks and you can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.
  • High Schools that Latinx Families Should Consider Based on the Latest Data
    • Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make.  The new school quality data was released by the state recently, and I wanted to highlight some of the schools making progress with Oakland children, and encourage families to visit.  Every child is different, and I will break it down into subgroups (schools showing progress with Black, Brown and low income students) in the next few weeks and you can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.
  • Free Financial Education Workshops
    • Join us for a series of free workshops. Join Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley for a series of financial education workshops. These presentations provide basic information regarding managing credit, debt, spending and savings as well as the home buying process.

How You Can Help:

  • Literacy for All: It is time to ensure every child becomes a powerful, lifelong reader.
    • There is a reading crisis in Oakland – fewer than thirty percent of black and brown kids are reading on grade level, and less than half of all students are at grade level for reading. The wait is over. The time is now for a citywide movement. 
  • McClymonds High School HBCU Tour 2020
    • Located in West Oakland, CA, McClymonds has a long tradition of brilliance, from Hall of Fame basketball player Bill Russell to MC Hammer. In an area with prestigious schools like UC Berkeley,  Stanford and San Francisco State, however, our mostly black student population has shared that these local colleges and universities lack a large black student population. As a result, students are also seeking out colleges that represent and reflect black culture, history, entrepreneurship and struggle.
What do you think?

More Comments