Thursday was a big day for 16-year-old Diamond Griggs.
The Lodestar High student was a moderator during the Oakland school board and city council candidate forum organized by student and family leaders of Families in Action for Quality Education (FIA) on Thursday, September 13 at Learning Without Limits in East Oakland.
Diamond and her sister Tunisia asked candidates “lightning round” questions, making sure they didn’t give anything more than a “yes” or “no” for questions like, “are charter schools public schools?”
And earlier in the day, she preregistered to vote and just like the adults in the room at the forum she can cast her vote in this November’s election.
“Young voices matter,” Diamond said in an interview after the forum. “Tonight we all got to hear what the candidates are really thinking.”
Candidates for Oakland school board and city council in Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7, as well as candidates for the city council at-large seat participated in the forum. Not all candidates were present and a few also had representatives in their place.
All the candidates were asked the same questions after giving opening statements, around what they would do to ensure Oakland students are prepared to succeed in college and career and their priorities for balancing a budget with both the city and school district facing large budget shortfalls.
Many of the candidates talked about their deep ties to Oakland and their opinions on what can be fixed to improve Oakland public education. They questioned spending priorities by both the board and city council and shared ideas on how they can bring more students back to Oakland schools while also improving their educational experience.
Many also shared the importance of improving literacy and math scores for Oakland students, and all candidates answered that they support the “science of reading” during a lightning round question.
Public safety was a frequent topic that the candidates kept coming back to, with many candidates sharing it is their top priority. Rich Harrison, the CEO of Lighthouse Community Public Schools, said he appreciated hearing from both city council and school board candidates about their ideas for making Oakland safer for students and families.
“Our city’s public safety has been compromised to the point where it has made the work of running schools more challenging,” Harrison said in an interview after the forum. “Basic community safety is an enabling condition for great schools.”
Jorge Lerma, the outgoing District 5 school board member, was one of a number of current board members who attended the forum (Clif Thompson, the incumbent District 7 representative participated in the forum; District 1 rep Sam Davis, the school board president, briefly stood in for District 1 school board candidate Rachel Latta; and District 4 rep Mike Hutchinson was in the audience.
Lerma said he was eager to hear from the new faces he saw on the stage if they were really “all in” for large-scale positive renewal of Oakland.
“It has to be a citywide effort and it has to involve all of the diversity of Oakland, in particular the most marginalized communities, which continue to be the Latino community and the African American community,” Lerma said. “They have to be front and center for any planning to transform the city.”
During the forum, FIA leaders announced a plan to register 1,000 youth for the upcoming election. Mariela Jimenez is a recent Oakland public school graduate now a student at UC Berkeley is a FIA youth leader working on that campaign.
Like Diamond, Mariela (who is 18) will be a first-time voter this election.
“I’m excited,” she said about voting for the first time. “I get to vote in the school board election but also the presidential election.”
She believes the younger generation will have a big impact on the 2024 election.
“A lot of young people don’t vote and kind of leave that up to the older generation,” Mariela said. “But with Measure QQ passed and the work we’re doing around it, there are going to be a lot of youth who turn out. That is really going to shift the numbers – I don’t think they’re ready for how much the numbers are going to shift.”