School Board
At a campaign event at Redwood Heights Elementary, Oakland mayoral candidate Jean Quan sought to position herself as the “education candidate” and discussed the upcoming Oakland teachers’ strike.
Thirty-five people showed up at Wednesday night’s school board meeting in downtown Oakland to speak on non-agenda items—a significant turnout given that there was no union-organized rally or charter school petition on the agenda.
Like Oakland Unified School District’s K-12 system, Adult Education is facing massive cuts and administrators have had to narrow the program’s focus to the district’s highest needs: foundational literacy, basic skills and workforce training.
In addition to the several hot issues on the agenda, each of which pulled in a crowd, representatives from four Oakland public schools that have just been listed on the state’s lowest-performing schools list came to the meeting to state their disagreement with the listing.
At a quiet school board meeting on Wednesday night, Oakland’s school board renewed the charters for two local schools: North Oakland Community Charter School (NOCCS) and Lighthouse Community Charter.
The agenda item that garnered the most attention and public comment was the board’s adoption of a resolution stating its support for the Day of Action that has been called for by the California Coordinating Committee.
At Wednesday’s school board meeting it was clear that next year’s budget cuts are going to be huge, real and brutal. Board members faced a proposal to cut the equivalent of 87 full time salaries at the central office in an attempt to scour $39 million from next year’s budget.
More than $17 million of the Bay Area’s stimulus money has ended up in Oakland’s public school classrooms, lessening the impact of the California budget crisis. But what happens as the money runs out?
Cox Academy, World Academy, North Oakland Community Charter and Lighthouse Academy presented their cases to the Oakland Board of Education.