Posts Tagged ‘civil rights’
Activist gathering promotes “MobileJusticeCA” app
Activists are promoting Mobile Justice CA, an app created by the ACLU of California which enables users to record and report police actions in their community.
Read MoreYou Tell Us: Mandela’s Oakland visit was turning point for young refugee
The death of Nelson Mandela last week revived memories of the day in 1990 when the anti-apartheid leader spoke in Oakland. Among those present was Oakland resident Sonny Le, a former boat person from Vietnam, now a U.S. citizen and instructor at San Francisco State. In a guest op-ed, Mandela’s example altered his DNA, and changed the course of his life.
Read MoreCivil rights complaint resolved at Skyline High School
In early March, Skyline High School and the Oakland Unified School District resolved a complaint filed by the high school’s Black Student Union nearly a year ago. The resolution could change how students file complaints, allow random audits of students’ class schedules, offer training for teachers on how to deal with complaints of racial discrimination,…
Read MoreOne Oakland teacher’s lesson on discipline
Price has a special vantage point on the Resolution Plan, given the fact that he was once a disobedient student, and now sometimes works with students with behavioral issues. He’s a little ambivalent, he said—because he understands how tough classroom teaching can really be.
On the one hand, he said, monitoring their own disciplinary actions more closely will push teachers to find resolutions to kids’ problematic classroom behaviors, without kicking them out so readily. “It will cause teachers to deal with students,” Price said.
On the other hand, it will leave some students with the opportunity to “steal the education” from their classmates, Price said, referring to students who are disruptive to the point that it disturbs the class and ruins the lesson.
Price grew up in East Oakland, graduated from Montera Middle School and Skyline High – and was a self-admitted troublemaker throughout his teens.
Read MoreOUSD board postpones discussion of federal inquiry at first meeting of the year
In their first meeting of the 2012-13 school year, Oakland Unified School District board members decided Wednesday evening to postpone one of the highly anticipated items on the agenda: a discussion about the district’s response to a federal inquiry into the disciplining of African American male students.
Read MoreWaiting for a Prop. 8 ruling, one couple reflects on two years of same-sex marriage
Oakland residents Joel Preston and Kevin Harrigan were among the 18,000 same-sex couples who got married in California during the six months in 2008 when gay marriage was legal. Now, as the state waits for a ruling in on the Proposition 8 trial that may overturn California’s current ban on same-sex marriage, the couple reflects on what two years of legal marriage have meant to them, and what the right may mean to others.
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