Education
Teachers in Oakland can expect a 2 percent raise next year, but that was the only positive budget news from Wednesday night’s school board meeting. The district is expecting to lose more of its state funding this year, is running low on much of its one-time-use federal funding and continues to struggle with low enrollment.
Only one generation ago, almost half of all children in the United States walked to school. But today a look at the car-jammed streets outside of schools in the morning and afternoon tells a different story. Only one in ten children now walk to school regularly, with the number of walking and bicycling trips to school made by children down by 65 percent over the last 40 years, according to the U.S Department of Transportation. Parents’ concerns about traffic safety are…
Oakland resident Wallace Lee crammed himself into a small room in Oakland’s Chinatown with nearly three dozen other parents on Saturday afternoon to hear plans for what many East Bay residents see as an unfilled gap in the area’s education system: a public school with a Mandarin-English curriculum.
Public school students in Oakland now have one more way to let authorities know if something is making them feel unsafe on campus: texting. Beginning last Thursday, a new program at the six major high school campuses in town—Oakland Tech, Skyline, McClymonds, Fremont, Castlemont and Oakland High—allows students to send anonymous text messages to Oakland Unified School District police about anything that worries them, from rumors of a fight on campus to concerns that a weapon has been brought to…
Making the right decision can be hard when you’re young, especially when you’re raised in a violent neighborhood. But some community organizations are working to train urban youth in Oakland to think through their decisions more clearly, and help transform their community.
About 30 teachers gathered Thursday to demonstrate in front of three banks at the Rockridge shopping center at 51st Street and Broadway. McClymonds Teacher Craig Gordon explained the group was there to “demand that schools and public services be bailed out” the same way that banks were bailed out during the mortgage crisis.
The famed Harlem Globetrotters are rolling through Oakland for two games this weekend and will bring all of their trademark basketball skills and antics with them, as well as their distinctive messages of fun, kindness, and inclusion.
Four charter schools presented petitions to renew their charters at the Oakland Unified School District board meeting last night. Students, teachers and parents from the Oakland schools crowded the boardroom and took turns asking the board to let their schools continue to operate for five more years.
Holding an oversized, fleshy mushroom in one hand, an excited Steven Cochrane says, “Let’s key this out!” Cochrane is an amateur mycologist, and he’s holding an item irresistible to mushroom enthusiasts: an unidentified fungus.