Education
Representatives from over 40 historically black colleges admissions offices met with Bay Area high school students at Laney College in downtown Oakland for the Third Annual Historically Black College Recruitment Fair.
Concerned parents, children and community members packed the Oakland Unified School District board meeting Wednesday night. They clutched protest signs that voiced opposition to the recent announcement that OUSD will soon close as many as ten elementary and middle schools.
The Warriors began a series of “Green Mobs” in partnership with insurance provider Esurance last year, during which community groups participate in events supporting sustainability and environmental awareness. Tuesday’s Green Mob was one of four planned for this season.
A half decade after the painter Norman Rockwell turned her portrait into a powerful symbol of American public school desegregation, Ruby Bridges-Hall was back in Oakland last weekend, telling a packed church, “At the end of our time, there is not going to be a white heaven and a black heaven. There is only going to be one place.”
We asked six Oakland residents to remember the events September 11, and reflect on how it’s changed their lives in the decade since. For some the impact was immediate and life-altering. Others experienced the drama from a distance. None of them will ever forget it.
Oakland Tech senior Luc Dark-Fleury is expected to be one of the top defensive players in the Oakland Athletic League this season. Last season, though, he suffered his second concussion, producing fear that hits on the field could have lasting effects.
The First Friday art crowd packed the room, backing all the way up the stairs. This wasn’t a conventional event for one of Oakland’s downtown art walks. It was a youth fashion show, featuring local kids trained by Mario Benton, a San Francisco native who moved to East Oakland 16 years ago. “From childhood I wanted to be a fashion producer and have models,” Benton said. “That’s my first love.”
Last week, the Hyundai Motor Company presented Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland with a $100,000 grant to support the Children’s Oncology School Reintegration Program, which helps pediatric cancer survivors return to school following treatment.
To chants of “Si se puede!” eight young people stood smiling on stage at the New Parish club in downtown Oakland on Thursday night. They were there to tell the stories of the farmers and community members they had met while on a road trip across California to promote farm bill reform and to encourage young people to support new farm-related legislation.