Posts Tagged ‘school closures’

Oakland Unified started the school year this week without its five network attendance liaisons, whose sole job was to keep kids coming to school, even as the district struggles to get a handle on absenteeism.  The School Board cut the jobs when it approved the 2022-23 budget on June 29. Weeks earlier, Ilene Fortune, a…

Chanting “Whose schools? Our schools,” parents, teachers and community members erupted into protest at Wednesday’s Oakland Unified School District Board of Education meeting, prompting the board to recess the meeting and move it online. Protesters approached the dais with signs that read, “Hands off our schools” and “No school closures” after the board failed to…

Azlinah Tambu leaves her studio apartment off 73rd Avenue at 3:50 p.m. With enough time to pick up her younger daughter, Nasira, from after-school care at Parker K-8. She brings a set of keys, her phone and a bag of Cheetos. Before she locks the door, she makes sure she has her keys.  Parker is…

Around 60 people attended a town hall meeting Monday at Parker K-8 to discuss ways to save that school and six others that the Oakland Unified School District board has decided to close in the next two years.  Most of the parents, teachers and students at the meeting were from Parker, which is set to…

Hundreds of people danced, chanted and marched down International Boulevard on Saturday to protest the Oakland Unified School Board’s decision to close seven schools.  Wearing Black Panther Party symbols and shirts that said “Black Joy,” they rallied to the sounds of Bay Area classics like Mac Dre and E-40. Holding signs that read: “No cuts…

A caravan of vehicles that stretched for blocks paraded through the streets of Oakland Thursday evening, honking in solidarity against the Oakland Unified School District’s plan to close eight schools and merge others.  The caravan slowly made its way through the streets, stopping at the home of OUSD Director Sam Davis, where dozens of people, old and…

For the last three Oakland school board meetings, protesters from the newly-formed Oakland Is Not for Sale Coalition have tried to prevent the meetings from taking place, chanting, raising banners and attempting to take over the stage where board members are seated in order to hold what they call a “people’s board meeting.” The group…

Tensions from the recent Oakland teachers’ strike were still reverberating among attendees during a special meeting for the Board of Education on Wednesday night. Hundreds of people filled the auditorium at La Escuelita Education Complex, holding small green signs that set the theme for the night. One side of the signs read “No new charters.”…

On Friday afternoon, just as Oakland’s school board meeting was supposed to start, a union representative wearing red–the symbol of the “Red for Ed” movement that has galvanized teachers’ strikes across the nation–stepped in front of the crowd and announced that teachers and school officials had reached a tentative four-year agreement. If ratified, it will…

On the fifth day of their strike, Oakland teachers shut down a school board meeting. Starting in the early afternoon on Wednesday, teachers and their supporters picketed outside of the La Escuelita Education Complex. By the time the meeting was set to start, thousands of teachers, parents, and students were marching all around the building.…

At an emotional meeting Monday night, the Oakland Board of Education voted to close Roots International Academy, a middle school in East Oakland, despite Roots students, parents, teachers, and staff imploring them to keep the school open.