A month after the Oakland Unified School District board voted to close five elementary schools, members voted Wednesday night to allow Life Academy, a small health and sciences high school in East Oakland, to expand to offer middle school classes as well. At a packed meeting that mostly focused on the district’s financial issues, board members also discussed the most recent state audit as well as a report on teacher and staff retention.

Three weeks after the OUSD board voted 5-2 to close five elementary schools—Lakeview, Lazear, Marshall, Maxwell Park and Santa Fe—and relocate or merge several other schools, parents and staff affected by the closures are working to figure out what they will do. Their array of “options,” which will be handled by “transition coordinators,” includes no guarantees.

Although Oakland school board members have said they will not vote on school closures until Oct 26, scores of irritated speakers crowded Wednesday night’s meeting to plead for a second, third, and even fourth look at their schools before a final decision is made.

Oakland drivers on Interstate 580 had a scary encounter with a police pursuit of a stolen Honda Accord Saturday morning, as the driver sped down the wrong side of the highway.  The suspect and a police officer, whose names have not yet been released, were injured in the high-speed chase. Both received medical attention. Two Oakland North reporters, en route to Lakeview Elementary for a school closures community gathering, narrowly missed a head-on collision with the wrong-way Honda on Interstate…

Over the past year, according to the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, 46 books have been “banned” in the United States—taken off school and main library shelves, removed as “inappropriate” from class reading lists, attacked by bloggers and family value organizations or re-edited to replace words deemed offensive. All of these books are being showcased this week for a library and bookstore event called Banned Book Week.

An emotional Oakland Unified School District board meeting that attracted hundreds of agitated parents and children went on until nearly midnight, though the board took no action in its controversial plan to close or consolidate more than a dozen of the city’s schools.

The preliminary list of OUSD schools recommended for closure three weeks has changed. Now five elementary schools are recommended for closure while two others are being proposed for “quality expansion.”

Earlier this week it was reported that the agenda for Oakland’s school board meeting on Tuesday, including a complete list of schools recommended for closure by superintendent Tony Smith, would be released at 5 pm Friday. The release date was changed to Saturday, September 24, at 5 pm. The list is posted, here.

The Oakland History Room’s exhibit will display items related to the fire on the second floor of Oakland’s Main Library from September 1 to November 30. The exhibit includes aerial maps of Oakland before and after the fire and public records related to the firestorm.