Community
While Oakland’s Uptown residents search for a place to pretend to do work while chain-smoking and listening to obscure punk, John Mardikian is busy scrubbing, painting, fixing plumbing, and doing general repairs on the space where Mama Buzz—and before that, Papa Buzz—had been in some form or another for over a decade.
The idea behind the concept of “mutual matching” is to find the best fit between a teacher and the school community in which they work. That concept is on the bargaining table now in discussions between the officials from the Oakland Unified School District and Oakland Education Association, as they discuss a proposal that would change the way teachers are assigned to schools in the district.
At Yu Ming School in Oakland’s Chinatown on a recent Thursday morning, a teacher writes on the board in slow lettering, and an eager bunch of students slowly sounds out the words in a collective chirp. Unlike most other kindergarten classrooms across the country, though, the writing isn’t in English, or even in Spanish. It’s in Chinese characters.
This year the Gilman, a not for profit punk rock club celebrates its 25 year anniversary. Oakland North talks with Brian Edge, author of “924 Gilman: The Story So Far,” about how this small gem of a venue is much more than just the few bands that played there and went on to become famous.
Violence prevention programs funded by Measure Y are working, according to a report presented at the Oakland City Council meeting on Tuesday night. But not well enough, councilmembers and speakers from the public responded.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, we will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by Josh Taxson.
Jim Steele pretty much grew up in the dive shop he currently owns. He still spends most of his time either in the shop, or doing something related to diving, like guiding a class underwater to see the kelp forests and sea life in the Monterey Bay.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Anne and Casey.
Every year, from early December till late January, the Oakland Unified School District has what it calls its “options enrollment window.” Parents of incoming kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade students can pick a school for their child outside their neighborhood. But it’s a more complicated process this year, because five elementary schools are scheduled to close this spring and an extra 1,000 students were thrown into the mix.