Education
“I put love into this food,” said Lawana Wyatt, who has worked with food services in Oakland for the past 13 years, as she instructed a member of her staff on how much food to add to each plate when the students arrived. Although Wyatt is enthusiastic about school lunch on any given day, she knew that Thursday’s meal was really something special. “It’s not every day that we can get organic food,” she said. “I think it’s a good idea. I really hope the kids come.”
Students and staff from Oakland Technical High School presented the school board with more than 700 signatures Wednesday night, asking the district to support tenured statistics teacher Evelyn Francisco, who faces deportation back to the Philippines if her visa is not renewed before December.
Before the state finalized its budget on Friday, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) had already made $122 million in cuts for the 2010-2011 school year, and had scheduled several child development centers for closure. Superintendant Tony Smith had called the further cuts “a possibility,” a scenario which district officials now say will be unlikely.
A twenty-minute documentary, produced by the North Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, examines failures in the California juvenile justice system and explores alternative methods in juvenile rehabilitation being used across the country
Hundreds of moviegoers were more than willing to brave the 45-minute line in front of the Piedmont Theater on Wednesday night for a free screening of Waiting for Superman, the controversial new documentary that some movie reviewers say could change the face of American education. The screening, which included a question and answer session with Oakland Unified School District superintendent Tony Smith, received about 1,000 RSVPs, but was only able to accommodate the first 412 people.
On Thursday, UC Berkeley students and employees protested rising student fees, cuts in the number of classes offered, and the state’s plan to cut $3 billion from education funding—a familiar theme on California college campuses over the past year.
Oakland Unified School District officials believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day—so important that they’re now serving it twice. In an effort to increase the number of students who eat breakfast at school, the district has begun implementing an additional breakfast option called “Second Chance Breakfast.”
It’s become an increasingly common scenario this fall: a parent loses his job, and his child suddenly stops showing up at school. Oakland United School District officials say this is largely due to a recent policy change at AC Transit.
On a recent Friday night, four students from Oakland’s Studio Naga began their black belt test in poekoelan, an Indonesian martial art that borrows its graceful movements from wild animals. The test’s many stages included meditation, a 10-mile run, and fending off fellow students over a sleepless 48-hour period.