Last week– the latest numbers on unhoused students, how SFUSD houses students at a school, the start of the school year with lots of new principals in new schools, and still looking for teachers, important parent perspectives, a historical look at OUSD, Mam is a language of growing importance, all that and much more, with links. Please read share and get involved.
Oakland:
- Over 1,000 Unhoused Youth in OUSD, The Latest Fact Sheet, and What OUSD Can Do
- Update from Jody London, District 1 School Board Director
- Donations help teachers’ dreams come true in Oakland, across the country
- SOBEO Rants…with Rachel Willis-Henry about Parent Advocacy & Losing Friends (Ep. 6)
- Meet the East Bay girls taking on tech’s gender gap
- After tumultuous school year, 20 Oakland principals step down
- Oakland Schools Still Seeking Teachers In Week Before Classes Start
- Stop Asking and Answering Other People’s Questions; Thinking Differently about Choosing a “Good” School
- With First Day of 2019-20 School Year Just Days Away, New Teachers Join OUSD, Learn About Their New Work Environments and Plan for Classes to Begin
- Faith Network of the East Bay Announces Major Rebrand at Oakland Event
- Do You Speak Mam? Growth of Oakland’s Guatemalan Community Sparks Interest In Indigenous Language
- Oakland School District Seeing Spike In Departing Principals
- Bay Area suffering from widespread teacher shortage
- Stop Letting Someone Dictate what Will Happen to Your Kids; Parents Need to Take Control
- 6th Man Sentenced In Killing Of Oakland Mother Defending Her Kids
- Make Oakland Schools Great Again; When 8 Latinx Males Completed the A-G Requirements and 29 Black Males Did
- 16th Annual Oakland Black College Expo
- A’s move from Coliseum would be insult to East Oakland residents
- Monday Is the First Day of School for Oakland’s K-12 Students
- Bay Area schools preparing for first day of school while dealing with teacher shortage
- High school on Treasure Island becomes first in Calif. to offer free housing to students
California:
- Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report
- Smaller classes, more novice teachers: the ‘tradeoff‘ for low-income California schools
- Child care providers push California to boost pay for early education teachers
- California education bills to watch
- State must provide school stability for foster youth
- ‘Separate Programs for Separate Communities’: California School District Agrees to Desegregate
- California students will ‘not pay a dime in tuition’ for first 2 years of community college
Other Stories:
- Cesar Sayoc, Who Mailed Pipe Bombs to Trump Critics, Is Sentenced to 20 Years
- Trump Is a White Nationalist Who Inspires Terrorism
- Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88
- Why we factor suspension rates into how we identify top schools for underserved students
- Optimism Alone Won’t Create a Successful School Year
- Aging onto the street
- National Study Bolsters Case for Teaching ‘Growth Mindset’
- Announcing the fourth Cohort of the Deeper Learning Equity Fellows
Resources:
Oakland:
- Over 1,000 Unhoused Youth in OUSD, The Latest Fact Sheet, and What OUSD Can Do –OUSD counted 1,001 unhoused students last year, 64% of those were Newcomers, and of the non Newcomers, more than half of the unhoused students were Black. You can see all the data in the latest fact sheet. The news is depressing, Oakland has the highest percentage of homeless in the entire state according to a recent article in the Chronicle, and youth are not spared. This is only getting worse, but we have an opportunity to make a real change.
- Update from Jody London, District 1 School Board Director
- I hope you’ve enjoyed summer break. As we get ready for the 2019-2020 school year, learn what some of our students have been doing this summer, how you can help schools prepare, and what’s on the School Board’s agenda this month.
- Donations help teachers’ dreams come true in Oakland, across the country
- Ashley Wallace is one of nearly 145,000 teachers nationwide whose students will start the school year with new classroom and learning supplies thanks in large part to the generosity of strangers.
- SOBEO Rants…with Rachel Willis-Henry about Parent Advocacy & Losing Friends (Ep. 6)
- This podcast series delves into the minds of some of the most influential Black leaders in Oakland (and beyond). When we let great minds just rant, they always leave a trail of gems in their wake. Enjoy.
- Meet the East Bay girls taking on tech’s gender gap
- Two high school seniors create, run summer camp to get middle school girls into coding.
- After tumultuous school year, 20 Oakland principals step down
- After a difficult 2018-19 school year, during which teachers went on strike for seven days, Oakland Unified agreed to make more than $20 million in budget cuts and the Alameda County civil grand jury released a scathing report alleging district-wide administrative dysfunction, 20 principals — around a quarter of the district’s total — left their schools.
- Oakland Schools Still Seeking Teachers In Week Before Classes Start
- Classes begin for 36,000 Oakland public school kids next Monday, but there are still dozens of teacher openings to fill, even after a seven-day strike last March that gave teachers an 11% raise.
- Stop Asking and Answering Other People’s Questions; Thinking Differently about Choosing a “Good” School
- Many of us are busy and anxious. We are social animals: We listen for the culturally normative thing to do among our friends and, most often, follow it. This is what Aristotle, and later a lot of Internet evangelists, called the “wisdom of the crowd” and what Hannah Arendt might have called the “banality of evil.”
- With First Day of 2019-20 School Year Just Days Away, New Teachers Join OUSD, Learn About Their New Work Environments and Plan for Classes to Begin
- Less than two weeks before the start of school, 150 new OUSD teachers took part in the New Teacher Institute. It was a three day training seminar at La Escuelita that started on July 31st. Going into the 2019-20 school year, Oakland Unified School District has hired several hundred new teachers, many of whom are brand new to the teaching profession, some of whom have transferred into the District from other locations and still others who decided to leave another position within the District to become a teacher.
- Faith Network of the East Bay Announces Major Rebrand at Oakland Event
- Faith Network of the East Bay, a highly effective nonprofit educational agency, will host a special event on August 8 to announce a major rebranding initiative. Invited guests include city officials, educators and community residents committed to improving opportunities for students in East Bay schools.
- Do You Speak Mam? Growth of Oakland’s Guatemalan Community Sparks Interest In Indigenous Language
- Learning even a few words in Mam has already helped Mirtha Ninayahuar break the ice with children at a Sunday preschool where she volunteers. Most of her students only speak Mam, she said.
- Oakland School District Seeing Spike In Departing Principals
- The Oakland Unified School District said 20 principals have quit over the summer, higher than the 10 to 12 that have left in recent years, according to district spokesperson John Sasaki.
- Bay Area suffering from widespread teacher shortage
- “We have about 27 openings currently, our talent staff, our recruiting staff is working feverishly trying to find new folks,” said School District Spokesperson, John Sasaki.
- Stop Letting Someone Dictate what Will Happen to Your Kids; Parents Need to Take Control
- “It’s more than waking up and living, you gotta take control of your life, and take control for your kid’s sake. There is a jail cell being built for your kid every day. Stop letting someone dictate what will happen to your kid.”
- 6th Man Sentenced In Killing Of Oakland Mother Defending Her Kids
- A 33-year-old Oakland man was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in state prison for his role in the fatal shooting of a 30-year-old mother of three children in a wild gun battle in West Oakland four years ago.
- Make Oakland Schools Great Again; When 8 Latinx Males Completed the A-G Requirements and 29 Black Males Did
- There is a set of folks who view every failure of OUSD as a result of charters. To them, charters drain money from the district and drain kids. The argument seems to go that things were great in Oakland before charters. Kids we thriving, the district was financially stable and families of all stripes were thrilled. Make Oakland Schools Great Again. Thing is, they were never great, and charters are a consequence of historic failures not the cause.
- 16th Annual Oakland Black College Expo
- Join us for our 16th Annual Oakland Black College Expo Saturday February 8, 2020 at Oakland Marriott City Center. High School Seniors and Juniors and College Transfer Students meet one on one with top HBCUs and a variety of other colleges and universities and get answers right on the spot.Get Educational Resources… EVERYONE is Welcome…it’s for Students of ALL Ages
- A’s move from Coliseum would be insult to East Oakland residents
- The community that has waited far too long for promises made to become promises kept
- Monday Is the First Day of School for Oakland’s K-12 Students
- Less than two weeks before the start of school on Monday, Aug. 12, 150 new OUSD teachers took part in the New Teacher Institute.
- Bay Area schools preparing for first day of school while dealing with teacher shortage
- As school districts get organized for the beginning of the school year, there are still a few things they must contend with. Filling all teacher positions is one of them.
- High school on Treasure Island becomes first in Calif. to offer free housing to students
- A high school on Treasure Island is now the first in the state to offer free housing to students.
California:
- Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report
- If some public schools advocates have been less than enthusiastic about Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempts to dilute charter school reform legislation, the governor shouldn’t expect any gratitude from California’s charter lobby.
- Smaller classes, more novice teachers: the ‘tradeoff‘ for low-income California schools
- Former Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature law, the Local Control Funding Formula, has frustrated researchers and advocacy groups that have wanted to verify how much of the extra money intended for targeted students has actually gone to the schools they attend — and how the funding was used.
- Child care providers push California to boost pay for early education teachers
- When a preschool teacher at a San Mateo center began to struggle to interact with children, supervisors became concerned. The reason for the teacher’s drop in performance?
- California education bills to watch
- Starting high school later in the day, giving school districts more latitude to reject charter schools and clamping down on exemptions from vaccinations are among the key — and controversial — bills that legislators will vote on by Sept 13. All of the bills have passed one branch of the Legislature. Gov. Gavin Newsom must sign or veto all bills by Oct. 13. We’ll be updating our list as the bills work their way through the process.
- State must provide school stability for foster youth
- For young people in foster care, school is often the only sense of normalcy they will experience in their daily lives while shuffling through the child welfare system.
- ‘Separate Programs for Separate Communities’: California School District Agrees to Desegregate
- A California school district outside of San Francisco agreed to desegregate its schools on Friday, after a two-year state investigation found that the district had “knowingly and intentionally maintained and exacerbated” racial segregation and even established an intentionally segregated school.
- California students will ‘not pay a dime in tuition’ for first 2 years of community college
- A recently expanded tuition waiver signed by Governor Gavin Newsom means any first-time and full-time student will be able to attend junior college for not just one year with free tuition but two years.
Other Stories:
- Cesar Sayoc, Who Mailed Pipe Bombs to Trump Critics, Is Sentenced to 20 Years
- Sayoc sent the bombs to prominent Democrats, setting off a frenzied investigation that unnerved the country before last year’s midterm elections.
- Trump Is a White Nationalist Who Inspires Terrorism
- A decade ago, Daryl Johnson, then a senior terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote a report about the growing danger of right-wing extremism in America. Citing economic dislocation, the election of the first African-American president and fury about immigration, he concluded that “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”
- Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88
- Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate in literature whose best-selling work explored black identity in America — and in particular the often crushing experience of black women — through luminous, incantatory prose resembling that of no other writer in English, died on Monday in the Bronx. She was 88.
- Why we factor suspension rates into how we identify top schools for underserved students
- If a school has strong academic results, but high suspension rates, is that a problem? We think so. That, however, is not a view that is universally shared.
- Optimism Alone Won’t Create a Successful School Year
- The smell of education is in the air. Parents have bought uniforms. School supplies are packed up and ready to go. Teachers have completed their beginning of the year requirements, decorated their classrooms and have received finalized student rolls. Students are fully aware that summer break is shortly coming to an end. As the new school year comes upon us, there is a need to get a better grasp on a more sufficient and efficient level of education.
- Aging onto the street
- Nearly half of older homeless people fell into trouble after age 50, new research shows. Meet three people who worked hard in life but fell through a tattered safety net
- National Study Bolsters Case for Teaching ‘Growth Mindset’
- Any student’s self-confidence can take a hit at the start of high school. Yet giving students even a brief opportunity to understand and reflect on their mindsets for learning can make them likelier to challenge themselves and improve, finds a new national study in the journal Nature.
- Announcing the fourth Cohort of the Deeper Learning Equity Fellows
- Big Picture Learning and Internationals Network for Public Schools are proud to announce the fourth cohort of the Deeper Learning Equity Fellowship, made up of seventeen leaders who will dedicate a significant portion of the next two years to addressing issues of education inequity in their local communities. This cohort joins a group of 40 Equity Fellows already steeped in this important work.
Resources:
- 11 Terms You Should Know to Better Understand Structural Racism
- The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change works with leading innovators to produce strong and reliable frameworks for successful and sustainable community change and development. Read below for a glossary of terms related to understanding structural racism and promoting racial equity analysis.
What do you think?