Education
The second-to-last Oakland Unified School District board meeting before the summer recess began Wednesday night with members of the teachers’ union demanding a new contract on the steps outside the district’s office, and ended with those same teachers becoming angry, tired and frustrated at having to wait six hours to present their proposal to the board.
One of America’s largest power utilities, San Francisco based Pacific Gas and Electric, which serves half of California’s public schools, announced Tuesday that it will oppose Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley)’s AB 1186, or the “Saving Schools Saving Energy” bill.
Tuesday’s transit of Venus—a celestial passage of the planet across the Sun—attracted thousands of people from across the Bay Area to Chabot Space and Science Center, all eager to see an orbit that will go back into hiding until December, 2117. The line of people stretched so far outside of the observatory that workers inside were calling out the headcount by the hour on walkie talkies, saying that the day could set the attendance record for America’s largest public telescope facility.
On Saturday, ASCEND K-8 opened its doors to students, families and the entire Fruitvale community for its Spring Exposition of Learning where students showcased written reports, artwork, multimedia presentations and musical compositions created during the semester.
On a Wednesday at Lake Merritt Dance Center—while the day’s usual runners circle the lake—seniors are tightening the strings on their dress shoes as they get ready for “Over the Hump,” a weekly dance lesson that culminates with dancing the night away until 11 o’clock.
Seven-year-old Jose Hernandez swiped through images on his mother’s tablet device in Oakland’s Verdes Carter Park as they took their place in a swelling crowd of parents and other children waiting for events marking the National Missing Children’s Day to begin.
On Wednesday afternoon, students from McClymonds High presented ancestral research projects as part of an event entitled “Remembering Our Past, Moving Toward Our Futures.” For three months, students had conducted ancestral research on their families by interviewing relatives and using genealogical search tools with help from volunteers from the African American Geological Society of California (AAGSC). Students even took a DNA test to find out about where their lineage originated.
More than 130 fifth and sixth graders at Lincoln Elementary School in Richmond studied science on Tuesday. Okay, so what? This time their teachers didn’t wear white lab coats and talk about strange things underneath a microscope. Instead, Oakland A’s outfielder Josh Reddick and team mascot Stomper used a Louisville Slugger and chopped up baseballs to talk about the “Science of the Game.”
Claremont Middle School, a small public school near the northern border of Oakland, spends $53,000 on energy bills each year, nearly $130 per child for its 405 students.