Education
Oakland’s Measure QQ, which allows 16-year-olds to vote in school board elections, became the sole youth vote measure in California to pass in this election, with over 67% of the vote. San Francisco’s Proposition G—which would have let 16-year-olds vote in all city elections—is projected to fail by a margin of less than two percentage points, as of Friday. California Prop. 18—which would have granted the right to vote to 17-year-olds who would turn 18 by the general election—failed by…
There is perhaps no more commonly spoken word in Oakland Unified School Board meetings than “equity.” The nebulous term discussed frequently on agenda items ranging from charter school access to climate change. There is an entire office devoted to the subject, with a specified board agenda. A new proposition on the ballot could help OUSD advance their equity mission by increasing diversity in hiring and contracting. The only problem—critics say these measures may violate federal civil rights laws. Voters will…
Riley Mitchell loves to cook. When the 55-year-old isn’t bragging about making the “best potato salad this side of the Mississippi,” Mitchell enjoys cozying up with a good book. Since the pandemic, Mitchell started to re-read classics like The Color Purple, mostly for pleasure. But since the library where Mitchell took adult literacy classes closed, being able to revisit some of his favorite books has helped him maintain his hard-won reading skills. “When they first shut it down, I shut…
Forty elementary schools in Alameda County submitted reopening plans as of Oct. 16, and 10 resumed in-person learning in some capacity this week. All of them are private or charter schools.
Voters will decide next month whether to approve a ballot measure which could provide a windfall for schools and local governments, but a far greater burden on businesses and tax assessors. The existing property tax law is governed by a 1978 ballot measure, Proposition 13, which significantly limited state property taxes. But the new measure, California Proposition 15, would modify this law to create a “split-roll,” where commercial businesses worth more than $3 million would be taxed based on their…
Before the pandemic, special education students across the country received hands-on, in-person support for their classes. But distance learning has brought new challenges for the roughly 13 percent of Oakland Unified School District students in special education.
2019 brought a new group of student reporters to Oakland North from across the country and the globe. We covered a city that is always changing, but where tensions about city finances, policing, housing and the fate of the public schools run deep. We also produced three new episodes of our Tales of Two Cities podcast, which covers audio stories from Oakland and Richmond in collaboration with our sister site, Richmond Confidential. Click here to check out all episodes of the Tales of…
OUSD’s board voted to close Kaiser and merge its student body and teaching staff with those already at Sankofa, to the dismay of Kaiser’s vocal supporters.
In the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), all students have access to school breakfast, lunch and supper through the Community Eligibility Provision, which is a federal program that allows schools in high-poverty areas to serve food to students without collecting money from them or asking them to apply. This robust access to food serves a critical need for students during the school week. According to the OUSD’s website, the school nutrition services provide approximately 7,500 breakfasts, 20,000 lunches, 10,00 snacks…