Education
When Jean Quan began campaigning to be the mayor of Oakland, she promised to clean up Oakland’s neighborhoods and improve the city’s schools. Quan’s win surprised those who expected front-runner Don Perata to sweep to victory. But when the new, ranked-choice voting system took second choices into account, Quan pulled ahead. There are big roadblocks for the new mayor, but so far they haven’t slowed her down.
Oakland School Board members voted to send notices to 538 teachers warning of potential layoffs, renewed four charter schools, and approved the second interim budget in a marathon eight-hour meeting Wednesday night.
It’s Monday afternoon, and most of Oakland Technical High School’s ice hockey team—in full pads and bright purple and yellow uniforms bearing their Bulldogs logo—have hit the ice for a special skills clinic led by Justin Braun and Andrew Desjardins, players for the San Jose Sharks.
Oakland Unified School District may soon have to consider one of the least popular moves a school district can make: closing schools. In short, the district has room for 10,900 more students than it’s serving, and not a single extra dollar to spend on maintaining empty space.
An intimate gathering was held Thursday night to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Khadafy Washington Foundation for Non-Violence, an organization founded by heartbroken parent turned community leader, Marilyn Washington Harris. In August 2000, Harris’ 18-year-old son Khadafy Washington was shot and killed. In 2001, she started the foundation to meet the needs of homicide victims’ family members.
On Wednesday, the International Community School put on a Dr. Seuss pajama party—with the help of local PBS affiliate KQED—during the time when their after school program normally meets. The party started out with an appearance by a costumed avatar of the Cat in the Hat (the real deal if you ask any of the students) and branched off into story time in each of the Kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms.
With some passing drivers honking to express support, dozens of teachers and students rallied in front of Oakland’s Elihu M. Harris State Building on Wednesday afternoon to protest the severe budget cuts awaiting school districts if Governor Jerry Brown’s tax extension proposal fails.
As part of a packed agenda, on Wednesday night the Oakland school board heard presentations from two East Oakland charter schools hoping the board will grant them charter approval: American Indian Public High School and Aspire – College Academy.
With all eyes fixed on the North African nation, two Egyptian-born scholars drew a riveted audience at Mills College in Oakland on Wednesday night at an event dedicated to discussing the revolution’s finer points.