Oakland students debate proposed tax on sugary beverages

Audience members watch the debate.

Two weeks before November’s national election, two Bay Area Urban Debate League members debated a hot local ballot measure in downtown Oakland. Megan Ma and Aiden Koontz, both Oakland Tech High School students, took the podium to present and argue opposing sides of Measure HH, a proposed tax on soda. Measure HH has become one…

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Lucid: Energy innovation with a startup’s soul

Lucid has been around for 12 years, but the clean tech company still considers itself a nimble, innovative upstart. The company’s marketing head Ralf VonSosen said that every employee is required to be versatile enough to handle multiple tasks and responsibilities. He added that he has personally done everything from preparing for board meetings to…

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One Oakland teacher’s lesson on discipline

Martel Price listens to students from his leadership class.

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.

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Tech girls bring home OAL hoops title

Oakland Tech finished off the OAL season with a 76-59 win over Castlemont in the league championship game on Saturday afternoon at Laney College. The Bulldogs will move on to the Northern California playoffs for the third consecutive time.

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