School Board
Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said Thursday that at least two shooters fired 30 or more rounds on the King Estates school campus in East Oakland Wednesday afternoon, wounding six adults, two of whom are students. Armstrong added that police know a driver was involved and possibly others. Police have made no arrests but believe the shooting was gang-related. Armstrong said police also think the shooters had a target and that those who were shot were not targeted. Oakland city…
Many students at Dewey Academy can now afford to ride the bus again. However, the future of the bus pass program depends on the Oakland Unified School District’s ability to make sure students who need help paying for transportation are able to get it. During an impassioned school board meeting on May 26, parents and teachers successfully fought to restore funding to cover bus fares for many Dewey Academy students. The majority of students there rely on the crucial passes…
California voters have decided not to restore affirmative action in schools. Proposition 16, which failed by a margin of 12 percentage points, would have reversed a 1996 ban on considering race, gender or ethnicity in public education systems and public contracting. State lawmakers—motivated by high-profile racial injustices, such as the police killing of George Floyd—voted to put this proposition on the November ballot. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) had already begun discussions on how they would take advantage of…
Oakland’s Measure QQ, which allows 16-year-olds to vote in school board elections, became the sole youth vote measure in California to pass in this election, with over 67% of the vote. San Francisco’s Proposition G—which would have let 16-year-olds vote in all city elections—is projected to fail by a margin of less than two percentage points, as of Friday. California Prop. 18—which would have granted the right to vote to 17-year-olds who would turn 18 by the general election—failed by…
2019 brought a new group of student reporters to Oakland North from across the country and the globe. We covered a city that is always changing, but where tensions about city finances, policing, housing and the fate of the public schools run deep. We also produced three new episodes of our Tales of Two Cities podcast, which covers audio stories from Oakland and Richmond in collaboration with our sister site, Richmond Confidential. Click here to check out all episodes of the Tales of…
OUSD’s board voted to close Kaiser and merge its student body and teaching staff with those already at Sankofa, to the dismay of Kaiser’s vocal supporters.
The Oakland school board considered a budget update and a new facilities plan at its final meeting of 2019.
At a special meeting on Wednesday night, Oakland school board members voted to deny one charter school a petition for renewal and failed to approve renewals for two others, planning to consider both again at the December 2 meeting.
At the auditorium of La Escuelita Elementary school Wednesday evening, Oakland Unified School District police officers were notably absent. So, too, were the barricades that had been set up to block protestors during a previous school board meeting on October 23, which had ended with the arrest of several protesters who oppose school closures and charter schools. Instead, camera crews from multiple media outlets were present, along with a predictably large crowd of protestors. Several people in the audience…