Residents take OUSD to task for delays on community schools and reparations for Black students

Members of the Oakland Unified School District board sit behind a podium, as teachers union members in black jackets and students in purple T-shirts wait to speak.

Oakland Unified School District is behind schedule on implementing two important projects, one with over $75 million in state funding.  Educators, parents and students voiced their frustration at Wednesday’s board meeting, saying the district has failed on its promise to establish a task force on student equity and a committee to allocate a grant for…

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How are Oakland schools responding to Prop. 16 failing?

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…

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Police arrest protesters at Oakland school board meeting

A protester demonstrating against school closures is taken into custody by Oakland School Police. Photo by Michelle Pitcher.

For the last three Oakland school board meetings, protesters from the newly-formed Oakland Is Not for Sale Coalition have tried to prevent the meetings from taking place, chanting, raising banners and attempting to take over the stage where board members are seated in order to hold what they call a “people’s board meeting.” The group…

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As early returns trickle in, Oakland voters and candidates wait

In a packed home in the Grand Lake neighborhood, supporters of Mayor Libby Schaaf and her campaign’s volunteers nibbled on quesadillas and checked back and forth between CNN and the front door to see when the candidate would arrive. Everyone from Jon Sarriugarte, the artist who designed the now-famous snail car, to city hall officials…

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