Education

Historic tall ships return to Jack London for battles and adventures

Hawaiian Chieftain will make her home at Jack London Square for the next few weeks, her 75-foot-tall mainmast and distinctive square sails attracting the awe and curiosity of passersby. Launched in 1988, she serves as an educational ship, providing what Grays Harbor calls “living history experiences” for K-12 students.

International antique book fair finds a new home in Oakland

The lines started early. One man asks if this is the queue for ticket holders, hoping that he is in the wrong one. To his disappointment, it’s the right line, so he waits, his anticipation growing to get a glimpse of the trophies inside. This is the 48th California International Antiquarian Book Fair. For three days, the Marriott Convention Center in downtown Oakland is transforming itself into a treasure trove for some of the most rare books in the world….

After 12 years, music fills McClymonds High School’s halls

The sounds of piano notes, falsettos, and string instruments echo through the empty hallways at McClymonds High School in West Oakland. The campus that once housed over 800 students has had a steady and rapid decline in enrollment in the past few years. Currently, one-fourth of the original population attends the school—putting the enrollment at around 250 students, the majority of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. This school year, 2014-2015, is the first time in 12 years that a music…

Struggling scholarship committee hopes to send Oakland students to college

Since its founding in 1995, Oakland Dollars for Scholars has had trouble rounding up funds for their scholarship recipients. The non-profit community organization seeks to pry open the doors to higher education that rising costs have closed to many students in traditionally-underrepresented communities. But with more donations coming from board members than from the community, scholarship amounts and the number of recipients they can serve have been uncertain each year. “We haven’t really been able to rally support from the…

Oakland teachers protest workload and pick up pickets signs during contract negotiations

It started with a bargaining tactic, and continued on Wednesday afternoon as a group of about 70 parents, students, and teachers walked down Park Boulevard carrying signs and shouting that they wanted a fairer contract. The march led to a packed school board meeting, as teachers, parents, and community members eagerly waited to speak about an item that didn’t appear on the agenda: contract negotiations between Oakland’s teachers and the school district. Negotiations between teachers, psychologists, counselors and the district…

Children’s film festival inspires creativity

Children of all ages swarmed in and out of planetarium theaters at the Chabot Space and Science Center this weekend for the 7th annual Bay Area International Children’s Film Festival. With two full days of short films from all over the world geared for different age groups, co-founder Jim Capobianco said the festival was meant to inspire kids and their families to be creative, and to expose them to other cultures and filmmaking. “I wanted to find films that were…