The Oakland Education Week in Review: 3/2-3/8

Last week, lots on the Mack closure, including an interview with Director Hinton-Hodge, the housing crisis, COVID closes its first school in Oakland, the continuing cuts and ongoing deficit in OUSD, progressive cities and the enormous opportunity gaps, dropping the PE test and a trans student’s story, all that and more please read, share, and get involved.

Oakland:

California:

Other Stories:

Inmates Are Earning Free College Degrees Behind Bars, And Their Recidivism Rate Plunges to 2%
Special Ed Student Told He Would Never Go to College is Now Best-Selling Author
Single Oklahoma Man Steps In To Adopt 13-Year-Old Boy After His Adoptive Parents Abandoned Him At A Hospital
Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups

How You Can Help:

The Lego Movie Benefit for The Equity Fund

Oakland:

Standing up for Students: FIA Youth Organizer Javier Barraza
- Meet FIA’s Javier Barraza, an East Oakland native who is working to bring resources back to his community
Director Hinton Hodge Talks Environmental Justice in the West, Her Dreams for Mack, and the Critical Role of Community
- A Guest post, part of our State of Black Education in Oakland (SoBEO) Rants series hosted by Dr. Charles Cole III
My PE Experience as a Trans Student; Swim Class, Changing Rooms and Sometimes Ignorant Adults
- Being transgender and trying to comfortably take a PE class is nearly impossible. So much of it revolves around gender, whether it be the changing rooms, teams, or simply passing the class.
They Did not Build this for You, Oakland’s Man-Made Housing Famine
- During the Ethiopian famine, the country exported food. There was enough food, people just couldn’t afford it. The same could be said of Oakland’s housing crisis. Oaklanders spill on the streets, while new shiny buildings go up, and others buildings sit empty. CityLab did a great story on this, noting that there were four vacant units for every homeless person in Oakland.
McClymonds Students Help the Homeless as They Await Toxic Test Results
- Forty students and several teachers on Friday picked up trash and handed out meals to homeless people in Oakland while their school remains shuttered following the discovery of contaminated groundwater beneath the campus.
Last Week’s McClymonds Environmental Town Hall Meeting, A Recap and Video
- Parents, Students and Community members jam packed The West Oakland Community Center to get a update on the status of McClymonds High School’s campus temporary closure due to a recently found contaminant called trichloroethylene, or (TCE) for short, underneath the school site in its ground water.
Community School for Creative Education, 2020
- This wonderful video featuring the Community School for Creative Education in East Oakland was made by PotentialSF.
On Progressive Cities Failing Black Kids & Mentorship between Generations, A SoBEORant with Chris Stewart
- A guest SoBEORants podcast and transcription from Dr. Charles Cole III interviewing educational activist Chris Stewart on the hypocrisy of liberal cities and the latest report from Brightbeam, comparing rhetoric and outcomes in cities like and including Oakland.
Oakland school board votes $18.8 million in cuts, up to 100 layoffs; hears pleas to cut police force
- The Oakland School District is prepared to cut its workforce by up to 100 workers starting July 1 and may consider eliminating its police force in the future.
Oakland charter school closes due to possible coronavirus exposure
- Aspire Monarch Charter School in Oakland has temporarily shut down due to a possible coronavirus exposure, according to the Alameda County Office of Education.
Community Pushes for Answers on Toxic Chemical Found at McClymonds High
- A community meeting, co-hosted by the New McClymonds Committee and the McClymonds 100 Year Committee, is seeking answers about the closure and moving of students and staff to temporary locations after a small amount of a cancer-causing chemical, trichloroethylene (TCE), was discovered in the groundwater at McClymonds High School in West Oakland.
Oakland Unified School District Considers Workforce Cuts
- The Oakland school district is prepared to cut its workforce by up to 100 workers starting July 1 and may consider eliminating its police force in the future.
Create Early Childhood Environments that Support Gender Diversity
- Participants will learn the impact of strict gender roles and stereotypes on young children and adults who care for them, build a shared vocabulary to discuss gender as it exists in the world and in our own bodies, and be introduced to an alternative gender diversity framework that is big enough for us all. They will also learn a wide range of practical strategies they can use right away to create early learning environments that support young children of all genders.

California:

Marin County Confronts Institutionalized Racism by Focusing on Equity
- A recent statewide analysis ranked Marin as No. 1 among 58 California counties for racial disparity. A study by the Association of Bay Area Governments showed that three Marin municipalities – San Anselmo, Ross and Belvedere – were the least racially diverse towns and cities in the Bay Area, with white populations in the high 80 percent range. It’s a stark difference from the diversity of neighborhoods just a bridge away in San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and Berkeley. Overall, Marin is 85 percent white and one of the oldest (in terms of average resident age) counties in California.
Plan to cut PE test — and its body-fat measurement — in California sparks debate
- California’s physical fitness test, a fixture in schools for 25 years, is set to be eliminated because it measures students’ body fat, too often inciting shame and anxiety among students, under a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But some cautioned that eliminating the test altogether might lead to less accountability and lower expectations for physical education, at a time when 30 percent of California adolescents are overweight or obese, according to the Data Center for Child and Adolescent Health.
Gov. Newsom speaks in Oakland as part of statewide school tour
- California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke at Manzanita Community School in Oakland as part of his statewide tour of schools.
A Legal Right to Literacy: 10 Kids Sued California for Failing to Teach Them to Read. Could Their Settlement Set a Precedent for Other Struggling Schools?
- “Der Governor,” reads the letter, now an exhibit in Ella T. v. California, a suit filed on behalf of the girl and nine other Southern California children. “I can improve the school. supplies eras piso cupiso. shrpo pars yes. I ned eshu hlpe.”
California school construction bond is losing
- A $15 billion state proposal to fund school and higher education facilities — the largest school construction bond in state history — is losing badly, at least for now.
Finally, a school data system emerging
- California has a very fragmented approach to education — a collection of institutional silos that only occasionally communicate with each other and often are more competitive than cooperative.
California K-12 schools prepare for coronavirus-related closures
- Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Wednesday after an elderly patient in Placer County, near Sacramento, died from the coronavirus. The latest developments heighten the urgency for education leaders in California, who have been exploring how to continue instruction in case of an outbreak.
Why bond and tax measures to bolster California schools struggled to pass at the polls
- California voters were uncharacteristically stingy this week when they rejected more than half the local school bonds and tax measures that would have funded campus facility upgrades and operations throughout the state.
California teacher uses racial slur in classroom; school district apologizes
- A Ventura County school district has issued an official apology after one of its teachers used a racial slur in class earlier this week, officials said.

Other Stories:

Inmates Are Earning Free College Degrees Behind Bars, And Their Recidivism Rate Plunges to 2%
- According to Hudson Link, the general rate of recidivism in the state is 43%, while the prisoners who walk out with degrees have only a 2% chance of being re-incarcerated.
Special Ed Student Told He Would Never Go to College is Now Best-Selling Author
- As a child, Ronnie Sidney, II was diagnosed with a learning disability and spent years in special education. After years of struggle, and after being told he would never go to college, Sidney graduated from VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University), and has gone on to become a best-selling author, who uses his experiences to help young people with learning difficulties and to help others understand the struggle many young people go through.
Single Oklahoma Man Steps In To Adopt 13-Year-Old Boy After His Adoptive Parents Abandoned Him At A Hospital
- Thousands of children enter foster care every year in the United States. It’s a depressing and, at times, very broken system. But today, we get a much happier story. A boy is taken out of the system for good and finds his family.
- A man named Peter Mutabazi has adopted his son, Anthony.
Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups
- Mr. Prince, a contractor close to the Trump administration, contacted veteran spies for operations by Project Veritas, the conservative group known for conducting stings on news organizations and other groups.

How You Can Help:

The Lego Movie Benefit for The Equity Fund
- Join Equity Allies for OUSD for a very special screening of The Lego Movie to benefit the Equity Fund! Join us to enjoy an all-ages film and support Oakland’s most-stressed elementary schools. All proceeds will benefit the Equity Fund.

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