Education
When Oakland teenagers voted for the first time in the city’s 2024 School Board election, the moment was hailed as a breakthrough for youth voice and local democracy. But nearly a year later, that excitement has turned into reflection and a push for reform. Passed by voters in 2020, Measure QQ made Oakland one of the first major U.S. cities to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in school board elections. The measure came after years of organizing…
On Tuesday afternoon, more than 60 parents, students, community organizers — and even the Grinch in a Santa suit — rallied at Oakland Unified School District’s headquarters to commemorate the five-year anniversary of disbanding the district’s police force. Their message: Even though it no longer has a police department, OUSD must do more to remove policing culture from its schools. The dissolution of the district’s police department was part of a plan known as the George Floyd Resolution, or GFR,…
As a child of immigrants, 14-year-old Quetzali Preciado-Cruz has always known what ICE was, but her anxiety surrounding immigration enforcement grew last summer when she read about the agency tripling its arrest quotas. “It seems simple, but I’m a kid. I should just be thinking about homework or finishing things like that, and not stressing about if ICE is going to detain somebody that I know,” said Quetzali, who attends Oakland High School. Until this week, there had been no…
Three years after California launched a savings program to help children pay for college, most families still haven’t claimed the money — and many don’t even know it’s there. The more than $2 billion program is designed to close the college access gap, especially for low-income families. But many Californians are missing out simply because they haven’t heard of it, said Cassandra DiBenedetto, executive director of the state-run ScholarShare Investment Board, which oversees the program. “Our biggest challenge is also…
Students in Room Five at Melrose Leadership Academy gathered around two adults with storybooks in their hands. They frowned when they heard a sad story and eagerly raised their hands to answer every question asked by the readers, volunteers for the 11th annual Latine Read-In Week. Organized by the Oakland Public Education Fund, the read-in brings community members into classrooms to share stories reflecting Latine voices and cultures. This year, 14 Oakland elementary schools welcomed 118 volunteers who read to…
Children shrieked and ran from puzzle to puzzle, their parents in tow, faces covered in blue cotton candy. Expecting worksheets or practice tests, they were excited to engage in the colorful math activities displayed across seven tables in the Laney College student center Friday evening Among the favorites was a game of colorful plastic shapes that children snapped together to make three-dimensional figures. One child made a hexagonal box with a top that opened and closed so he could put…
A day after outgoing Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell delivered a farewell address, the Oakland Unified School District announced Friday that former Chabot Elementary School Principal Denise Saddler will serve as interim superintendent for the next school year. The shift comes less than a year after the School Board extended Johnson-Trammell’s contract and a month after the board abruptly ended it in a 4-3 closed-session vote. The board has given no reason for her ouster, which is being called voluntary. But Johnson-Trammell…
OUSD names building after slain leader: ‘Thank you, Dr. Foster, for giving your life for this city.’
The Oakland Unified School District named a building Wednesday in honor of Superintendent Dr. Marcus A. Foster, the district’s first Black leader, who was assassinated in 1973. The new administration building at 1011 Union St., which opened in February, now carries the name of the superintendent who was killed by members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army in November 1973, just months before the group kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in Berkeley. Marsha Foster, the only child of Marcus and Albertine…
Frustrated by what they see as their school district’s lack of urgency in responding to lead in drinking water, four Oakland High seniors have transformed a senior class project into a broader campaign demanding safe drinking water and stronger protections for future students. Out of a shared distrust of their school’s drinking water, Palmer Kayondo, Daniel Thomas, Jeremiah Evans and Nijeer Roy-Enis created Project Nemo, a name inspired by the movie “Finding Nemo,” about a campaign to return a fish…