Posts Tagged ‘Oakland Unified School District’
Oakland schools celebrate the new year with a festival for students and parents
On Saturday morning parents, students, volunteers and school district staff held hands as they danced to the beat of a drum in the gymnasium of Fruitvale’s United Academy for Success as part the Oakland Unified School District’s first Back to School Festival. They formed a circle, led by members of the Medicine Warriors, a Native American dance troupe. “This dance signifies friendship and unity,” George Galvis of the Native American community center Intertribal Friendship House said to the crowd.
Read MoreFormer Lakeview Elementary parents and students adjust to new schools
Zarina Ahmad, principal of Piedmont Avenue Elementary in Oakland, put extra effort this year into creating a bright first day of school. She and her staff pasted a class list to the outside wall, with a photo of each teacher. Big orange cones separated children by their grades. Teachers ran a short pep rally, called the “Line Up to Learn.” Uniformed Oakland firemen welcomed kids into the school.
Read MoreLakeview campus is now OUSD administrative building
Tuesday marked two weeks since the former campus of Lakeview Elementary School became an Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) administrative hub. The campus is now home to OUSD’s Family, Schools, and Community Partnerships (FSCP) department, which was previously scattered among four locations.
Read MoreAt Oakland International High School, an edible forest begins to bloom
Banana and apples trees, pomegranate, pear, and plum. Blackberries and strawberries, lemons and persimmons. Thyme, sage, and a host of other herbs. This isn’t a supermarket produce section or a busy Saturday farmer’s market—it’s an edible forest, two of them in fact, planted by students in the courtyard of Oakland International High School.
Read MoreQ&A: Meet new Oakland Education Association president Trish Gorham
With the new school year approaching, Oakland North sits down with the newly hired Oakland Education Association (OEA) president, Trish Gorham. In this wide-ranging interview, the new head of the teachers’ union discusses school closures, the small schools movement, inequity among Oakland schools, the Lakeview protest, the challenges facing Oakland’s teachers and much more.
Read MoreLabor council decides not to sanction picket line at Lakeview Elementary
During a closed meeting on Wednesday, the Alameda Central Labor Council—an organization that represents over 100 workers’ unions and helps employers bargain to improve their workplaces—decided against a motion to sanction a workers’ picket line in front of Lakeview Elementary School which would have prevented unionized workers employed by the district from helping to develop the site into administrative offices.
Read MoreLakeview Elementary School supporters host concert and rally
Over one hundred people gathered at Splash Pad Park on Sunday for a “Celebration and Convergence for Public Education” concert and rally hosted by the supporters of the Lakeview sit-in and People’s School for Public Education. The park became a home for the People’s School after the volunteer-run program, and the tent city it served, were raided at Lakeview Elementary School in early July.
Read MoreLakeview protesters finish up last week of People’s School at Splash Pad Park
Canopies were up for The People’s School For Public Education on Tuesday at Splash Pad Park, where protesters who had previously been camping at Lakeview Elementary School have relocated the volunteer-run summer program to teach kids about social justice issues. Protesters are saying that Thursday will be the last time the People’s School will be held at Splash Pad Park before they choose another location.
Read MoreAlameda Central Labor Council considers sanctioning Lakeview picket line
On Monday evening the Alameda Central Labor Council—an organization that represents over 100 workers’ unions and helps employers bargain to improve their workplaces—considered a motion to get school workers’ unions behind an effort to form a sanctioned picket line in front of the closed Lakeview Elementary School to prevent district officials from moving into the building to use it as an administrative office, according to Oakland Education Association (OEA) members.
Read MoreAfter school camp shut-down, Lakeview supporters march to superintendent’s house
On Wednesday evening, a crowd of nearly 150 people, many of them parents, kids, and Occupy Oakland protesters, gathered on the concrete steps of Lakeview Elementary School hours after their two-week-old tent city was raided by Oakland Unified School District police and other law enforcement officers. The encampment was an effort to protest the district’s decision to close five elementary schools —Lakeview, Lazear, Marshall, Maxwell and Sante Fe—and keep all neighborhood schools open.
Read MoreLakeview Elementary encampment shut down; protesters vow to return
The tent city at Lakeview Elementary School has been dismantled. At 4 a.m. Oakland Unified School District police and other law enforcement officers raided the encampment where parents, teachers, and community activist had been sleeping for two weeks in an effort to protest the district’s decision to close five elementary schools.
Read MoreLakeview Elementary protesters mark 16 days with film screening, tightened security
After 16 days, the number of tents visible at the encampment at Lakeview Elementary School has doubled and protesters have changed their rules: No one is allowed to know the number of kids or adults who occupy the site in an effort to avoid a police raid. To celebrate the first two weeks of the sit-in protesting the closure of Oakland elementary schools and the launch of the People’s School of Public Education, the tent city residents hosted a community potluck on Sunday, as well as a documentary screening.
Read MoreLakeview Elementary protest draws hundreds of protestors in Oakland
On Saturday afternoon nearly 200 protestors showed up for a 1.7 mile march organized by a coalition of community organizers, Occupy Oakland supporters and Lakeview Elementary parents to protest the closure of five Oakland elementary schools by the Oakland Unified School District.
Read MoreEncampment continues at Lakeview as protesters demand district reopen closed schools
On Tuesday a second “stay away” order was issued by the Oakland Unified School District to protesters currently occupying the Lakeview Elementary School property but a small group of people continued to camp on the school grounds overnight as well as hold classes and community speak outs there during the day.
“We reserve the right to remove protesters from the premises,” said OUSD spokesperson Troy Flint.
Read MoreParents build tent city at Lakeview Elementary with help from Occupy Oakland protesters
School is out and parents who disagree with the Oakland Unified School District board’s decision to close five elementary schools—Lakeview, Lazear, Marshall, Maxwell and Sante Fe—at the end of this school year are protesting by building an encampment on the Lakeview campus, just off Grand Avenue.
Read MoreOUSD proposes new plan to expand healthy meals program, serve more fresh food
The Oakland Unified School District has proposed a new plan that will expand its healthy meals program by updating meal service facilities on campuses throughout the district, allowing schools to increase the number of campuses that can serve freshly prepared food.
As part of a program called Rethinking School Lunch in Oakland, OUSD Nutrition Services Director Jennifer LeBarre and Zenobia Barlow, executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, created an outline of options to expand and improve the overall district-wide food service
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