The Oakland Ed Week in Review: 4/26-5/2

Last week, make sure you are choosing your school for next year, we have high schools showing results for Black students, a look at Tech’s first Black valedictorian, a parent advocate’s story, looking at the new enrollment changes and some critiques and data, parent’s talk reopening, the superintendent’s focus on early literacy, the importance of mental health, we still need action on Broadband, all that and much more, please read share and get involved

Oakland:

• Oakland schools have a bold, simple idea for helping students’ struggling families: Raise money for them
• FAFSA Completions Down In CA: How Piedmont Area Schools Compare
• Student Entrepreneur Makes History as First Black Male Valedictorian at High School in Oakland
• Piedmont Unified School District separates students by race to talk about Chauvin trial; uproar ensues over implication that white students need support; superintendent promises to be more careful with wording in the future
• A Champion for her son, the community, and a future doctor — meet FIA leader Savoy Key
• Family Survey Says, Increasing Enrollment Should Be About Increasing Quality, Not Marketing Schemes
• Sophomores raise more than $6K to combat ‘period poverty’ in Oakland schools
• OUSD’s Double Talk on Reparations, Passing an Empty Policy While Moving to Exclude Black Contractors
• Piedmont school officials cancel “White student support circle” following backlash from students, community
• “I would love to just see them back in school doing kids stuff” — one parent’s view on reopening
• The wires may be there, but the dollars aren’t: Analysis shows why millions of California students lack broadband
• Opinion: Oakland School Should Focus on Students’ Early Literacy
• A rare look inside an Oakland high school as teachers, some students adjust to in-person learning
• Mental health, equity should be schools’ focus as students return, report says
• How many Oakland Unified students returned for in-person learning?

California:

• California Public Schools See ‘Sharp Decline’ in Enrollment
• California’s subject-matter testing for teachers is chasing away prospective candidates
• New superintendent for West Contra Costa Unified has concrete ideas for closing achievement gaps
• Where’s the logic in California state school testing this year?
• California superintendent releases names of distinguished schools

Other Stories:

• Pima County Attorney: Deputies involved in deadly shooting of 19-year-old won’t face charges
• Principals show bias in responses to Black parents, new study finds

Resources:

• High Schools that Showed Progress with African American Children

Oakland:

• Oakland schools have a bold, simple idea for helping students’ struggling families: Raise money for them
  • Over a dozen schools have fundraised and given away more than $250,000, no strings attached, to their families over the past year.
• FAFSA Completions Down In CA: How Piedmont Area Schools Compare
  • Among the many disruptions caused by the pandemic is a decline in the number of students filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is used to apply for college financial aid.
• Student Entrepreneur Makes History as First Black Male Valedictorian at High School in Oakland
  • Ahmed Muhammad will graduate as the first Black male valedictorian at Oakland Technical High School. The 18-year-old has a cumulative 4.73 GPA and is on track to reach 5.0. Muhammad’s extraordinary accomplishments have landed him acceptance letters from prestigious universities around the United States. He received admissions offers from 11 universities. Top schools such as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton were a part of his acceptance list.
• Piedmont Unified School District separates students by race to talk about Chauvin trial; uproar ensues over implication that white students need support; superintendent promises to be more careful with wording in the future
  • The Piedmont Unified School District thought it was doing a good thing when it set up racially segregated support groups after the Chauvin trial but BIPOC students protested the idea that white students needed support. It appears that clumsy wording in a subject line was deemed offensive to some. According to the superintendent’s email sent to address the uproar, the white group was not for support but rather to give white students “an opportunity to talk about how to be an ally.” The district stands by its decision to segregate students by race into “affinity groups” for these conversations but says it also plans to offer circles open to all.
• A Champion for her son, the community, and a future doctor — meet FIA leader Savoy Key
  • For Savoy Key, being a FIA Family Leader comes naturally. She has always advocated for her son — and fought, raised her voice, done whatever it takes — to ensure he receives the best education and the best care. From the beginning. 
• Family Survey Says, Increasing Enrollment Should Be About Increasing Quality, Not Marketing Schemes
  • OUSD is smart to think hard about its enrollment and how to stabilize or increase it.  Enrollment stability leads to financial stability and also creates more predictable planning for the district and families.  The OUSD board will be voting on its so called enrollment stabilization policy on Wednesday. 
• Sophomores raise more than $6K to combat ‘period poverty’ in Oakland schools
  • Two 15-year-old girls from San Mateo went on a fund-raising effort during the pandemic for their sister students across the bay in Oakland, after they discovered a need they could do something about.
• OUSD’s Double Talk on Reparations, Passing an Empty Policy While Moving to Exclude Black Contractors
  • If OUSD supports Black families it needs to support the Black economy and that means actually hiring Black, Brown and women contractors.  Unfortunately, its latest, pennywise pound foolish response is exactly the opposite.  Tonight they plan to dilute their policy that encourages the hiring of small, local and minority contractors, expanding the list of eligible folks to basically a statewide list and potentially tripling the size of what counts as “small.”
• Piedmont school officials cancel “White student support circle” following backlash from students, community
  • Piedmont school district officials have responded to a now-viral post on social media for a “White student support circle” in the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict, as officials called it a “poor choice of words.”
• “I would love to just see them back in school doing kids stuff” — one parent’s view on reopening
  • Across Oakland, charter schools are reopening to in-person instruction and welcoming in students. How do Oakland charter public school families feel about physically sending their kids back to school? How do they feel about distance learning? We are asking parents to share their thoughts.
• The wires may be there, but the dollars aren’t: Analysis shows why millions of California students lack broadband
  • About twice a week, the $9.99 per month internet connection falters. It’s often as Mario Ramírez finally wrangles his kids into their seats — the fourth-grader studies in the bedroom he shares with his 12 year-old sister, who studies in her parents’ bedroom —  in time for virtual class.  The screens freeze — sometimes during online tests. At times the little one bursts into frustrated tears as they wait for their connection to resume, precious class time slipping away. 
• Opinion: Oakland School Should Focus on Students’ Early Literacy
  • The literacy gap is rooted in racism, segregation and the fundamental belief that some students cannot achieve. It demands a systemic solution. While tests do not measure everything, on the 2019 Smarter Balanced exam, just 20 percent of Oakland’s Black students and 23 percent of Hispanic students met the standard in 3rd through 5th grade, compared with 76 percent of White Oakland students.
• A rare look inside an Oakland high school as teachers, some students adjust to in-person learning
  • Last Wednesday was the first time students in Oakland public schools could return to in-person learning, nine months after the start of the school year and just five weeks before the school year ends.
• Mental health, equity should be schools’ focus as students return, report says
  • To help students readjust to life after the pandemic, schools should use their Covid-relief funding windfall to imbue mental health, equity and relationships into every aspect of the school day, according to a sweeping new report released Thursday.
• How many Oakland Unified students returned for in-person learning?
  • Oakland Unified School District began reopening classrooms for in-person instruction nearly a month ago, but about two-thirds of the district’s roughly 35,000 students are still learning remotely.

California:

• California Public Schools See ‘Sharp Decline’ in Enrollment
  • California public schools have experienced a sharp decline in enrollment this year as the pandemic forced millions into online school, according to data made public Thursday.
• California’s subject-matter testing for teachers is chasing away prospective candidates
  • Deep content knowledge is one of the qualities that makes a teacher great, but California’s exam to ensure its teachers have such knowledge is scaring off desperately needed candidates. The state Legislature should change how the state assesses teacher content knowledge.
• New superintendent for West Contra Costa Unified has concrete ideas for closing achievement gaps
  • Kenneth “Chris” Hurst, who will take over as the first permanent African American superintendent of West Contra Costa Unified School District within a few weeks, has his sights set on closing longstanding achievement gaps between Black, Latino and white students at the 30,000-student district.
• Where’s the logic in California state school testing this year?
  • In its infinite wisdom, the United States government, along with the California Department of Education, has determined that despite the sad state of education in 2020, the state test will indeed go on. Although slightly shortened, we’ll once again take our standardized tests even though anyone in their right mind knows the results will be horrible.
• California superintendent releases names of distinguished schools
  • State schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond named an additional 121 schools — including 28 in the greater Bay Area — as 2021 California Distinguished Schools. The award honors schools that have made improvements in test scores, suspension rates, and conditions and climate. The state originally honored 102 schools March 18, but after further review of the data added the additional schools.

Other Stories:

• Pima County Attorney: Deputies involved in deadly shooting of 19-year-old won’t face charges
  • The deputy who shot and killed 19-year-old Bradley “Alex” Lewis in January won’t face any charges and neither will the other deputies involved in that case. That’s the final word from Pima County Attorney Laura Conover after she completed a second review of the shooting.
• Principals show bias in responses to Black parents, new study finds
  • A few years ago, thousands of high school principals across the country received a variation of the same email from a parent asking for “any information you can provide about enrolling.”
  • When the email was sent by “Emily Walsh” seeking to enroll her son “Greg,” 64% of principals responded. But when an identical message came from “Tamika Washington” with a son named “Jamal,” the response rate fell to 57%.

Resources:

• High Schools that Showed Progress with African American Children
  • Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make.  We haven’t had new school quality data from the state due to distance learning, so the data is from the 2018-19 school year 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 highlight these schools that have open seats for next school year. You can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.