Education

Holy Names University lockdown lifted after OPD secures campus

This story was last updated at 5:44 pm. A two-hour safety lockdown at Holy Names ended early Thursday afternoon after reports that a man with a gun had been on campus. No such person was found, police said. The Oakland Police Department responded at 10:30 Thursday morning to reports of a man who a witness said had a waist holster with a gun in it. Some witnesses had a conversation with the suspect and described him as “disheveled,” according to…

School board hears parents’ objections to consolidation plans

Parents, teachers and students wearing green Kaiser Elementary t-shirts and holding colorful banners gathered outside the Paul Robeson building before the Oakland school board meeting Wednesday evening, in protest against the combining of the school’s kindergarten and first grade classes.

A Lovely Day: A new documentary highlights Hip-Hop therapy in local high schools

In 2009, Tomás Alvarez III sat at his desk as a group of nine teenagers filed into his classroom at Oakland High School. This was the fifth year of his Beats, Rhymes and Life program, which uses hip-hop music as a form of therapy for at-risk teenagers. Alvarez began the class in the usual fashion, playing instrumental beats on a boom box. As the class gathered in a circle and began to freestyle, Alvarez recalls, he recognized something particularly special…

Financial planners offer free advice at Oakland City Hall

At the event held at Oakland City Hall on Saturday, people seeking general information or with specific questions about tax and estate or insurance and benefit planning signed up for 15-minute sessions to speak with certified financial planners who volunteered their services at the fifth annual Oakland Financial Planning Day.

Elementary students walk, roll to school

Wednesday marked International Walk and Roll to School day. Alameda County’s Safe Routes to School program coordinator Nora Cody said the event was being celebrated by 99 schools county-wide. Peralta Elementary was one of 22 Oakland schools participating.

At Castlemont, new school year brings changes, challenges

As Norman Ospina, the school attendance clerk and a translator at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, crossed the courtyard on a crisp overcast fall morning, he spotted a young man he believed had been involved in a campus brawl on September 21. Ospina, whose students call him “Mr. O,” placed his index finger over his mouth, and nodded in the direction of the student on the other side of the courtyard. The student instantly revealed a smile that was…