This extraordinary year has been challenging for any student: isolated from your friends, counting on the internet to work wherever you can get it, so you can try to follow a teacher on Zoom long enough to learn enough to navigate a project on your own. If you can find a quiet place to study…
Ryan Phillips
The Oakland REACH Virtual Family Hub in Action #REACHforMore
For the past four weeks, the Oakland REACH has been doing something that has never been done before: opening and operating a virtual summer school for Black and Brown kids through a Virtual Family Hub. Every parent — regardless of where we are from or how much money we have — wants what is best…
Bridges Stimulus Pledge raises $250k for Oakland families
It began in April as a simple enough plan: Bridges Academy at Melrose principal Anita Iverson-Comelo and her husband would donate their stimulus checks to Bridges families, 80 percent of whom had lost their source of income during the pandemic and majority of whom did not qualify for a stimulus check or unemployment benefits from…
Should OUSD take the Green and Social Bond Pledge?
This election, OUSD is placing a $735 million construction bond measure on the November ballot. While the investment is sorely needed, will voters hold their noses, swallow hard and trust the district to not waste all that money, after years of overspending from an organization that lacks an overarching building strategy and has suffered “a…
A local-to-global perspective on the digital divide in Oakland
When Anietie “Nate” Udofia thinks about the digital divide in Oakland, and the “new normal” public education is facing because of the pandemic, he does so with a global perspective. Udofia is a Nigerian American who has decades of experience working on distance learning and helping communities gain access to digital tools. He sees similarities…