OUSD starts process of revoking three AIMS schools’ charters

Concerned parents crowd an upstairs room at the Paul Robeson building and watch the proceedings of the September 27, 2012 OUSD meeting, during which AIMS was formally given a notice of violations. Photo by Lauren Kawana.

American Indian Model Schools founder Ben Chavis said Tuesday that the Oakland Unified School District’s recent decision to start the process of revoking the three AIM Schools’ charters is unfair and based on biases. “OUSD is upset because I did my job right and they lost students to me,” Chavis said. “They just want their kids back so they can get more state and federal funding.”

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Oakland sports fans link up to try to keep teams from leaving

Keith Salminen is passionate about his favorite team, the Oakland A’s. He’s the host of an Internet radio talk show called “A’s Fan Radio,” has been going to games since he was 2 years old, and says he regularly goes to 50 or 60 games a year. (The exception was the four years when he was in the Marines, stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, when he only made it to handful of road games.) Last weekend, Salminen had the finishing touches put on his arm tattoo: the A’s logo with the Oaklandish tree behind it.

“Basically, for the last decade I’ve been planning on getting an A’s tattoo because of avid of an A’s fan I am,” Salminen said. He’s such a big fan, he recently became part of a group of committed fans who are working to keep Oakland’s three professional sports teams—the A’s of Major League Baseball, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors—from leaving town.

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Early returns suggest Measure L short of required votes

Measure L, the $195 parcel tax that would have raise money for teacher salary increases, was receiving 58 percent approval in early returns tonight, with just over 10 percent of precincts reporting. But that fell short of the two-thirds supermajority required in California to pass any new tax increase.

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