Education
Path2Math director Margena Wade-Green and six high school tutors gathered in a circle to prepare for the day of summer school ahead. Wade-Green led everyone in a deep breath and instructed them to leave everything outside the classroom behind and “prepare to welcome the babies.” When the babies — actually six second grade students — arrived, a few ran to hug their tutors. And then the tutors got to work at individual stations, each with a bag of practice worksheets…
Two years ago, the Oakland Unified School District promised hundreds of Yemeni students that it would offer more services in Arabic, including hiring more Arabic-speaking teachers, to help kids from the war-torn country achieve. During the Fifth Annual OUSD Arab American Student Excellence Honor Roll Celebration at the end of April, the district made good on some of what was promised. “OUSD has done wonderful jobs making students feel at home,” Fathia Mohamed, whose child attends Skyline High School, said…
Oakland Unified School District teachers will return to work Tuesday, 12 days after striking when the union and district could not come to an agreement on wages and other issues. The three-year tentative deal, retroactive to Nov. 1, 2022, includes a 10% raise and a $5,000 one-time payment, a compensation package that Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell called “historic,” at a Monday afternoon news conference. Under the contract, first-year teachers with a bachelor’s degree will earn $62,296. Other points that Johnson-Trammell highlighted…
On a cloudy Saturday morning, Carmen Román and her husband, Pierr Padilla, filled the basement of the Golden Gate Library with a symphony of sounds, using their feet, hands and traditional Afro-Peruvian instruments. A small group of children shrieked with glee and bumbled around the room, dancing as their parents nodded to the beat being created by Román and Padilla opening and closing the top to their cajitas, a box-shaped Latin percussion instrument, and hitting it with a thin stick. …
Hundreds of Oakland Technical High School students skipped classes, cordoned off 45th Street and Broadway, played music with themes of anti-police brutality, and painted murals Monday to honor Tyre Nichols, who died Jan. 10 after being beaten by Memphis police officers. “Hey hey! Ho ho! White supremacy has got to go!” they chanted, outside the school building. Nichols’ death has led to a spate of protests across the country. After attending a protest last week led by the Anti-Police Terror…
The Oakland Unified School District Board of Education’s decision last year to close or merge schools violated labor law, the California Public Employment Relations Board said in a proposed decision released this week. The PERB report says the decision to close or merge 11 schools violated the Educational Employee Relations Act — which establishes collective bargaining in California public schools and community colleges — because it was made “without providing notice and the opportunity to bargain the effects of that decision…
The Alameda County Registrar of Voters has acknowledged a mistake in the way votes were tallied in November, leading to a change in the District 4 Oakland Unified School District election outcome. Mike Hutchinson, who seemingly came in last place, actually won, Hutchinson announced on Facebook Dec. 28. That day, the registrar posted on the county election site that its ranked-choice voting system “was not configured properly” for the November election. It said that only one outcome was affected —…
In between bites from a chicken and veggie sandwich, Oakland resident Connor Hunter, 9, read aloud from a poster he had just signed at Lincoln Summer Nights, a community event hosted by a coalition of local organizations. The prompt: “If you were an elected official in Oakland, what would your first act be?” “I wrote that if I was elected mayor, I would give $500,000 to businesses in Oakland because it would help the community and businesses grow. I could…
Two of the three newly elected Oakland Unified school board members say they want to reverse this year’s controversial decision to close schools. That means the board could have the majority needed to rescind the motion. Jennifer Brouhard, who was elected in District 2, and Valarie Bachelor, who was elected in District 6, are against the closures. Current members Mike Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams consistently have been opposed to the closures. Combined, they will make up the majority of the…