Community
Today is the first day of the Oakland teachers’ strike. Public school teachers and staff gathered outside their schools to form picket lines, chanting and rallying support in their quest for smaller class sizes, higher wages, more student support services and a promise from the district that there will be no more school closures. Earlier this week, we followed Alejandro Estrada, a 4th grade teacher at International Community School and the union representative for his school, as he prepared to…
Early Thursday morning, Oakland teachers went on strike, calling for a pay raise and a reduction in class sizes. As early as 6 am, teachers gathered—equipped with coffee, jackets, and beanies to withstand the chilly morning weather—and started to picket in front of their schools. The strike follows two years of failed negotiations between the Oakland Education Association, which represents teachers as well as school nurses, counselors and other staff, and the Oakland Unified School District. The teachers have been working…
Oakland teachers will strike on Thursday, after a last minute efforts to reach an agreement failed today. A new fact-finding report will likely serve as a foundation when negotiations resume on Friday.
Last Monday, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) service moved its morning service one hour later in order to conduct a seismic retrofit on the Transbay Tube that will allow it to withstand major earthquakes in the future. BART shifted its systemwide service from 4 to 5 a.m., allowing work crews to have an extra hour each morning. The retrofit and service shift will last for the next 3.5 years in order to complete a “waterproofing project” to protect the…
Galvanized by the teacher strikes in Los Angeles and Denver, now Oakland teachers are preparing for their own. The strike is currently expected to begin on Thursday, February 21.
Oakland city council voted in an emergency moratorium to temporarily protect duplex renters from rent control exemptions. These exemptions apply to housing units where a landlord lives within the duplex or triplex with the renters.
Kids ran around relentlessly, and parents did their best to keep up. This was the scene at the Oakland Museum of California’s Lunar New Year Celebration, an annual event that drew residents from across the Bay Area. A line of traffic formed on Oak St. just for museum parking. As attendees continuously flooded through the museum entrance, the sight of walls adorned with red decorations and multi-colored lanterns welcomed them. The festivities focused on how members of the Asian diaspora…
Local bicycle shops are dying off in the East Bay. In the last two months, five of them have closed their doors in Alameda County. One of them is Oakland’s Manifesto Bicycles. Owners Sam Cunningham and Mackay Gibbs explain how a decline in bicycle commuting and competition from online retailers affected their business and led to them having to shut it down.
Tamales come in all shapes, flavors, and sizes. At Oakland’s Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, tamales — and how to make them — took center stage on a recent weekend.