“Education is a right one fights for,” yelled the group of student protesters, which also included UC Berkeley labor union members, Cal alumni and even high school students who are worried about their future education.

“We have more people than we had at this time of the day compared to the previous protest on September 25th.  We have to show our solidarity,” said Ricardo Gomez, a junior at UC Berkeley and an organizer with the Solidarity Alliance and Berkeley Students Against Cuts.  Gomez said he is lucky enough to have a scholarship available for him, but he says he is participating in the protest for the good of future generations.  “I am doing this especially so students of color will have access to affordable education,” said Gomez.

Other student protesters said the budget cuts are deeply affecting their lives. “I cannot even sleep at night because I am worried about how I can pay tuition. My family is not wealthy enough to support me,” said Cristina Doan, an 18-year-old freshman at Berkeley.  Doan says she cannot even find work.  “The economy is really bad and it is hard to find job to pay tuition,” said the ethnic studies major, who says she wants to be a teacher at community college.

Berkeley junior and ethnic studies major Alejandro Jimenez agreed with Doan.  “I do not have tuition for the next semester,” said Jimenez.  He supports better educational opportunities for students with color because most of them are not privileged enough to afford tuition.  “I want my share for what I pay for with my taxes,” he said. “We deserve affordable education.”

There ware several skirmishes between protesters and other students who were trying get through the Sather Gate. “Join the strike today, go to the class tomorrow,” the crowds shouted. However, some students said protesting by boycotting classes is not an effective way to send a message.

“I think they are misguided,” says Jeffrey Lucas, a junior at Berkeley, who was overlooking the protest from the Cesar Chavez Student Center.  He said that if students really want to change the situation, they should go to Sacramento.  “The methodology is wrong,” said the 22-year-old philosophy major.

His friend Andrew Brandford agreed. “I think it is a good form of expression.  But I do not think boycotting class makes sense because we are already losing classes,” said the 21-year-old philosophy major.  They were on their way to a class taught by philosophy professor John Searle, who was active in Free Speech Movement in the 1960s.  “Even Professor Searle did not cancel the class today,” said Lucas.

Around 10:30 a.m., the protesters broke into several groups to picket around the campus, leaving a portion of their group in front of the Sather Gate.  They stormed classes taking students and teachers by surprise, although many classes went back to normal after the protesters left. Said a senior molecular and cell biology student who was attending a class at the Wheeler Hall after the protesters left, “I am angry about the budget cuts, but I still have to graduate.”

Photos by Ayako Mie; photo slideshow created by Allison Davis.

“See, you have the people’s support,” local resident Nancy Delaney said.  “Now what about the damn administration?”

Physics teacher Richard Fairly, who has been at Tech for sixteen years, said he had come out on this chilly morning “to decry the cuts to education and also to support a strong contract for Oakland’s teachers.”

“There will be a number of positions that will have to be cut at Tech and some services,” Fairly said.  “I know the principal is trying to keep as much of the current program as possible,” he added, noting that Tech principal Sheliagh Andujar was a strong supporter of the teachers.

Andujar was out in front of the school as well, chatting with teachers and leaning into car windows to give parents flyers about the district’s planned events for today. The “day of action” was originally called for by the California Coordinating Committee, a loose statewide network of students, teachers and concerned citizens, and has taken off across the state with unions and school districts planning events to protest budget cuts in their cities and towns.

According to Vernon Hal, the Oakland Unified School District’s chief financial officer, next school year the district will face a budget shortfall of $85 million due to loss of funding from state cuts, declining enrollment and the exhaustion of last year’s federal stimulus money.  This will mean cuts to both district staff and school staff, Hal said yesterday.

Piedmont elementary schools conduct a "fire drill" protest.

To protest the cuts coming down from the state, schools across Oakland held informational pickets before school this morning and then participated in a 9:15 am “disaster drill” to signify the significant hazards facing public education funding. Students and teachers exited their school buildings carrying signs and voicing chants like “SOS, Save Our Schools!”

That was the chant at Piedmont Elementary this morning.  All 350 Piedmont students filed out of their classrooms and into the schoolyard as the school’s fire alarms rang in short, staccato bursts.  Ranging from kindergartners to fifth graders, students stayed in single-file lines, holding printed signs that read “Support Oakland teachers” and “We care about our future.”

“Thank you for coming out of the building!” Piedmont Elementary principal Zarina Ahmad said through a bullhorn.  “In the tradition of speaking up for our rights, in the tradition of protesting when things are unfair and unjust, we are having a day of education.”

A sign outside of Piedmont Elementary School in Oakland.

Led by their teachers — many clad in neon-green Oakland Education Association t-shirts — the students then marched out of the schoolyard and around the front of the building, past a giant sign reading “No more cuts to public education,” before returning to the school through the main entrance.  In addition to the “Save our schools!” chant, students blew whistles and shook tambourines and maracas.  Most cars that passed by honked in support.

In her office after the drill, Ahmad said she hoped her students took away two lessons from the day’s activities.  “The first is that it’s their right to speak up for what they believe in,” she said.  “And I want them to know they did something about it.  They got involved.  They got their parents involved.  They lifted their voices to say our schools need help.”

At Oakland’s Claremont Middle School, Ellie Hill, age 11, was at school early to hand out flyers and was toting a bright green sign that read, “NO CUTS” during her school’s “disaster drill.”

A Claremont Middle School student holds a sign during the "fire drill."

“I think it’s unfair for them to take our education from us,” Ellie said.  “I went to a [private] school in the Berkeley Hills called Cragmont in kindergarten through third grade and we had all our materials set on our desk—we had a pencil set on our desk. We wouldn’t have to ask for one.  Now, when we get here, we have to buy our pencils because they can’t provide us pencils because they are cutting down and taking our money.”

Her school’s principal, Kenya Crockett, said she felt the same way.  “Schools have been cut to the bare minimum. With further cuts, I don’t know how we will prepare students to be citizens in the 21^st century,” she said.

All 410 of Claremont’s students participated in the drill this morning.  Students filed out in lines behind their teachers, some toting bright yellow emergency kits just as they would for a non-symbolic fire drill.  Some kids chatted with their friends or stared into space, but many others held signs over their heads and yelled, “no cuts!”

Claremont Middle School principal Kendra Crockett hugs two students during the "fire drill."

Crockett said that the school had taken the day of protest as a “teachable moment” and had used some of the lesson plans provided by OUSD to give students “examples of protest, the power of protest and how protest results in change.”  The school will also host an assembly addressing these issues this afternoon.

Back at Oakland Tech earlier this morning, students were gearing up for a full day of protesting.  Some even said they planned to leave school at lunchtime to join the protesters from UC Berkeley and other Oakland locations in the march to Frank H. Ogawa Plaza for an afternoon rally.  The Oakland Unified School District has announced that students leaving school today will be listed as having an unexcused absence, but that wasn’t deterring students who planned to attend the rally.

Ninth grader Jamal Johnson, who said he loves math, said he was going downtown “to protest with all the other schools and colleges.”  Jamal said he was aware of the consequences, but, he said, “I come to school every day on time, so, I feel like I can do this one time.”

October 21, 2002: Oakland Superintendent Dennis Chaconas announces that the school district is $35 million in debt.

June 2, 2003: Despite deep cuts and huge layoffs, California Governor Gray Davis signs SB39, a bill written by Don Perata, that grants the district a $100 million loan but also puts it under state control.

July 2009: The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) comes out of its state takeover, but owes $6 million a year to service the loan first. An audit conducted over the summer also indicates that the district has $7 million less than initially thought because of an unreconciled cash accounting issue.

Summer 2009: Federal stimulus funds are granted to the Oakland Unified School District to help patch over the $70 million in budget shortfalls the district faced for the 2009-2010 year. This funding is not expected to be renewed.

July 2009: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger threatens to suspend Prop. 98 in an effort to balance the state’s budget.

December 10, 2010: OUSD CFO Vernon Hal announces that the district will face a $14 million shortfall at the end of the 2009-2010 school year. Close to $7 million of this shortfall is the result of an audit that found the district had been over-reporting its available cash.

January 5, 2010: In his State of the State address, Schwarzenegger vows to honor Prop. 98.

January 13, 2010: OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith announces at a school board meeting that the district is facing $36 million in budget cuts for the 2010-2011 school year. That number has since increased to $39 million. The majority of the new cuts announced in January come from a negative cost of living adjustment made by the state that will reduce the state’s per student expenditure. School districts are funded by the state on a per student basis; the per student allocation is multiplied by the average daily attendance at a given school district.

February 10, 2010: The OUSD school board approves a resolution to support the March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education. In addition to holding a press conference at 4 pm to decry the cuts, on March 4 the district will organize a district-wide fire drill at 9:15 am to symbolize the “disaster” in public education funding. Students and teachers will exit their buildings holding signs and march in front of or around their schools before returning to classes.

March 1, 2010: The Oakland Education Association, which represents teachers and instructional aides in Oakland’s traditional public schools, (charter school teachers are not union members) announces that they plan to strike on March 24. The union has been in negotiations with the district for over a year and has pushed for a raise for teachers in its new contract. Smith has said that the lack of funds makes a raise unlikely.

March 3, 2010: In an interview with Oakland North, Vernon Hal explains that the district will have to operate on $85 million less in 2010-2011 than they were operating on in 2009-2010.

School systems trying to fill budget gaps have employed stimulus money, furloughed employees, deferred hiring, cut enrollment and increased fees.

Over the last year, the fallout from funding cuts has spurred protests, from student, faculty and staff walkouts, to strikes, protests, riots and vandalism. On Berkeley’s campus, thousands of students, professors and employees staged a walkout in September. Two months later, on Nov. 20^th, a group of about 40 students took over the second floor of Wheeler Hall, while several hundred students staged a sit-in outside of the building.

On March 4, parents, students, faculty, and school staffers throughout California are planning a statewide “day of action” to protest cuts to education funding. Organizers have planned events on campuses, at the state capitol, and in Oakland. The initial call for the day of action came from the California Coordinating Committee, a loose network of students and faculty from across California that met once last spring. Since then, the idea has spread and many education and labor groups across all campuses have taken up the call. The OUSD board approved a resolution to support the DoA at their Feb 10 meeting and have planned the days events in conjunction with the OEA (teacher’s union) and the other unions with members who work for the school district.

Some protests have begun ahead of March 4. On Monday, more than a dozen UC students headed to the state capitol to try to convince lawmakers to allocate more funds to higher education. Last Friday, what started as a dance party protest at Berkeley’s Sproul Hall turned into a riot on the South side of campus. Protesters broke the window of a Subway sandwich shop, and set a dumpster on fire.

Although different groups will observe March 4 differently—and some not at all– all parts of the state and all levels of public education have been deeply affected by the budget cuts. At the University of California, the regents furloughed employees, and approved a 32 percent hike in undergraduate student fees to offset a $535 million shortfall. Patrick Lenz, the UC vice president for the budget, said could grow to $600 million in the next fiscal year if the school doesn’t find new sources of revenue. UC President Mark G. Yudof has defended the cuts as a necessary action. “When it comes to the university’s core support, we have only two main sources – taxpayer dollars from the state and student fees,” he said in a press release. “Even with deep administrative cuts, when one goes down, the other almost inevitably must go up.”

The state is reducing general fund support for California State University system by $66.3 million for the 2009-2010 school year. Over the summer, the state university system decided to end spring enrollment—which usually adds about 35,000 students to the system—in order to help cut its budget. Tuition this year is up $978, or 32 percent, for full time students.

The California Community Colleges system is facing $520 million in budget cuts, or 7.9 percent of its overall budget for the current school year, and is expecting to lose another $320 million during the next school year. A student fee increase implemented in the fall of 2009 is expected to offset the cuts by approximately $80 million. Since the last school year, enrollment has fallen by 21,000 students.

K-12 education is struggling as well. The Oakland Unified School District is operating on a $615.3 million budget for the 2009-2010 school year, down $70 million from last year, and the district expects to face cuts of another $40 million next year. Though the district says it is working hard to keep most of these cuts—65 percent—at the district’s central office rather than at school sites.  School sites in Oakland are run on what is called Results Based Budgeting, which allows principals to create their own budgets based on their allocation from the district, which, among other factors, is based on the average daily attendance at individual schools.  Since principals don’t yet know what their allocations for next fall will be—the final budget will be voted on in June—it is unclear at this point if there will be teacher layoffs.

Programs run by the district but separate from the schools are suffering too. Oakland’s Adult Education program is scheduled to receive a $7.5 million cut this summer, a 15 percent reduction in its overall budget.

Meanwhile, the district is in the midst of what have become very tense budget negotiations with Oakland’s teachers’ union, the Oakland Education Association.  Union members recently voted to support a strike if the district failed to offer an increase in compensation in the new union contract.  Oakland teachers have not received more than a 1.5 percent raise in the last seven years and are the lowest paid teachers in Alameda County according to the California State Department of Education.

Oakland North will provide all-day coverage from three cities—Oakland, Berkeley and Sacramento—on March 4. On our site, you can find timelines showing campus protests and legislative action, numbers to help explain the budget cuts, as well as a map of planned actions in the East Bay. Oakland North reporters will be updating the site, and our Twitter and Facebook pages, throughout the day.

Additional reporting contributed by Lillian R Mongeau.

As the crowd headed onto Telegraph someone broke the window at the Subway sandwich shop, and the crowd quickly squared off against the arriving tide of police officers.

Oakland North correspondents Shannon Service and Josh Wolf were there to report on the event. The two reporters sat down to review their footage and discuss what they witnessed that night.

A similar dance party is scheduled at San Francisco State March 3.

Josh Wolf is embedded with the student protest movement; for more information on his involvement please click here.

1960: The California Master Plan for  Higher Education is introduced, creating new guidelines for the already-existing tripartite system in CA public education: the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges.  Many of the plan’s recommendations became codified into law; others, like the plan’s eligibility targets for admissions in the three systems, are not officially law.

June 6, 1978: Proposition 13 passes with 65 percent of the vote.  Introduced at a time of rising housing values and property taxes, Prop. 13 placed strict limits on property tax rates.  As a result, local property taxes, the bulk of the revenue base for local governments and school districts, were cut by 57 percent.  The state picked up the slack in spending, and General Fund expenditures increased accordingly.  Prop. 13 also instituted a two-thirds vote requirement in the legislature for approving tax increases.

November 8, 1988: Proposition 98 passes, guaranteeing a minimum level of funding for K-12 schools and community colleges.  The measure laid out complicated formulas for determining Prop. 98 allocation; it does not specify percentage shares for K-12 schools and community colleges, and although it establishes an overall funding level, it does not protect individual programs from reduction or elimination.  Prop. 98 requires that roughly 40 percent of General Fund revenues go to education from the kindergarten through community college levels.

2003: Two years after the dot.com bubble burst and state revenues plummeted, then-governor Gray Davis reinstates the state car tax to combat California’s budget deficit.  The car tax fuels discontent against Davis, who is recalled in California’s first-ever gubernatorial recall election on October 7, 2003.

Fall 2008: The national economy collapses, ushering in the “Great Recession.”  California is hit hard, as unemployment rates jump from 7.6% in September 2008 to 11.5% in March 2009.  With escalating unemployment, the state’s income tax revenues fall, exacerbating the deficit problem.

February 19, 2009: After five days of deadlock, the legislature passes a 17-month budget plan to close an estimated $40 billion shortfall.  The plan, to end in June 2010, includes $15 billion in program cuts and spending reductions.  K-12 schools took the largest hit in spending reductions, with cuts totaling $8.6 billion; other cuts included furloughs of state workers and spending reductions for health and social services.

May 19, 2009: Six ballot measures, intended to ease the state’s budget crisis, are put to a vote during a special election. All but one–a measure to freeze legislators’ salaries in times of fiscal crisis–were defeated.

July 24, 2009: The Legislature passes amendments to the 2009-2010 Budget Bill, updating the agreement made in February.  The deal includes broad cuts in state spending, including $6 billion in new cuts to K-12 schools and community colleges, and $3 billion worth of cuts to higher education.  The package was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger four days later.

January 6, 2010: Schwarzenegger proposes a state constitutional amendment that would require California to spend more on higher education than on prisons.  The change to the constitution, which would need to be approved by ballot measure, would require 10 percent of the General Fund to be dedicated to state universities, while capping prison spending at 7 percent.

January 8, 2010: Schwarzenegger submits his 2010-2011 budget proposal to close the state’s $20 billion budget gap.  The plan proposes cuts to social services, like eliminating a $1 billion welfare program for families with children and reducing the state’s Medicaid eligibility to the minimum.

February 10, 2010: Democrats in the state senate propose the year’s first round of budget cuts, focusing on trimming government payroll and the prison healthcare budget.  Decisions on cuts to schools and social services will not be made until the summer.

About 5,000 people gathered in Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley to protest state budget cuts that led to layoffs and furloughs for staff and faculty, according to SF Gate. The cuts were expected to result in fee hikes at the UC and state college systems.

October 9 and 10, 2009 — Anthropology library study-in

More than 100 UC Berkeley students participated in a study-in to protest the administration’s decision to shut down small campus libraries on Saturdays, according to SF Gate.

October 16, 2009 — Education and psychology library study-in

Students organize a second library study-in at the education and psychology library in Tolman Hall. On the Wednesday before the demonstration was scheduled to begin, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Harry Le Grand sent a school-wide email to students announcing that the university planned to restore library hours to its spring 2009 schedule. On Friday, the same day the demonstration was scheduled to begin, the school announced that the first library to have its hours restored would be the one students targeted that week.

October 24, 2009 — Statewide Mobilizing Conference for K-12 and Higher Education

According to organizers, more than 600 people attended a conference at UC Berkeley to plan further protests to respond to the budget crisis and other concerns over public education. Conference attendees agreed to establish March 4 as a “state-wide day of action,” or a day focused on protesting public education budget cuts.

November 18 – 20, 2009 — Three-day Strike

A coalition of students staff and faculty organize a three-day strike and walkout. The events are timed to coincide with a UC Regents meeting to consider increasing student fees. The turnout at the rallies in November dwarfed the September demonstration. Thousands of students gathered outside Wheeler Hall on November 20 after students occupied the building in response to the regents voting to raise fees. After more than twelve hours inside Wheeler Hall, the students were eventually cited for trespassing and released. The district attorney didn’t file any charges against the students, but the participants are still facing student misconduct charges for their involvement in the occupation.

December 5 – 11, 2009 — Live Week and march to chancellor’s house

A contingent of students working under the name Reclaim UC organize a second occupation of Wheeler Hall and brand it “Live Week,” a play on the “dead week” each semester where there is no new instruction. Unlike the previous occupation, students do not barricade themselves in the building and the demonstration gets the tacit approval of the administration after the UC police department decides not to force students out of the building on the first night. But on early Friday morning, the police come in while nearly everyone is sleeping and arrest 66 people who were inside at the time.

That night, a concert that had been planned for inside Wheeler Hall is moved to an off-campus co-op. At the end of the concert, about 50-70 people wearing black bandanas march to Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s house. A few individuals shatter lampposts, planters and two of the houses windows.

Eight people are arrested and charged with multiple felonies, but the Alameda County District Attorney doesn’t file charges against the people arrested. Four of the students who were arrested are UC students and two of them are still facing student conduct charges at this time.

February 26, 2010 — Dance Party turns violent

A night-time dance party at Sproul Plaza, which had been promoted on Facebook and through handing out flyers on campus, transforms into an occupation of Durant Hall, a building under construction on campus. Around 2 a.m. the students leave the occupation and continue dancing down Telegraph Avenue. The party quickly dissolves into a confrontation with police in which dumpsters are set on fire, bottles are lobbed at police, and dozens of protestors are struck by batons. Police make two arrests during the night.

Josh Wolf is embedded with the student protest movement; for more information on his involvement please click here.