Education
Musically Minded, Oakland’s non-profit music school, is holding a series of camps and workshops over the winter break for kids of all ages. The Rockridge academy, which opened early this year, triples as an education facility, community center, and concert venue. Music classes that will be offered this December include a hip-hop workshop and vocal ensemble sessions, and for the lovable but tone-deaf tots out there, there are workshops in topics like jewelry making and science.
Oakland’s holiday kids’ charity needs toys — lots of toys. This year’s Toy Drive, a city program that provides low-income families gifts for their children during the holiday season, has received more than 2,000 petitions. Its organizers expect this number to quadruple over the next few days.
The Oakland School for the Arts (OSA) Chamber Choir will tour in New Orleans in April 2012.
This week, OUSD officials are hosting community input meetings on boundary changes that are scheduled to go on until Wednesday. The boundary changes come after the OUSD school board voted in October to close five schools — Marshall, Lakeview, Lazear, Maxwell Park, and Santa Fe. OUSD officials now have to restructure attendance boundary areas for families who live near the schools slated for closure.
Kelly Carlisle is the founder of the Acta Non Verba Youth Urban Farm, a program that teaches young people about growing food by using a garden as a classroom. The kids, most of whom are between the ages of 7 and 13, get to take the vegetables they grow home to their families, or donate them to the neighboring community.
INFOGRAPHIC: How much did Occupy Oakland cost the city? And was it worth it? Using information released by the City Administrator’s Office, city budget reports and our own reporting, Oakland North reporters have created an infographic that weighs the costs of Occupy Oakland.
“Love, respect, care, responsibility, honor, and peace”—that’s the Warrior’s Code that East Bay youth are being taught at Destiny Arts Center as part of the Growing Peaceful Warriors Program. Instructors teach young people self-defense and conflict management skills to deal with possible real-life dangerous situations through the martial and performing arts.
As parents, students and teachers at Oakland schools grapple with the school board’s recent decision to close five elementary schools, the Adult and Career Education program in the district has already come to terms with cuts that closed two campuses and decimated the program’s funding.
A month after the Oakland Unified School District board voted to close five elementary schools, members voted Wednesday night to allow Life Academy, a small health and sciences high school in East Oakland, to expand to offer middle school classes as well. At a packed meeting that mostly focused on the district’s financial issues, board members also discussed the most recent state audit as well as a report on teacher and staff retention.