Youth Alive! tries to break cycle of violence in Oakland

In a Castlemont High School classroom converted into a theater for the day, seven-year-old Junior returned home from school to face his parents after receiving a bad report card. “How the hell did you get an ‘F’ in English?” the father asked. “Are you stupid?” Junior kept his head down. “You should act like a…

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Oakland police bring back the Teddy Bear Patrol

Teddy bears were given to classrooms at Horace Mann Elementary to restart OPD's Teddy Bear Patrol program.

Kindergarten and first grade students gathered in the auditorium of Horace Mann Elementary Wednesday afternoon cheered as Oakland Police officers handed teachers a special community policing accessory—four brown teddy bears, with blue bows tied around their necks.

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Green Stampede volunteers combine baseball and tutoring

Andre Johnson gets extra math help from Melissa Williams during the 8th inning.

The Green Stampede was founded in 2001 by Oakland school board member Chris Dobbins, who designed the program, along with friends who were both teachers and A’s fans, as a combination recreational and tutoring after school program. “It gives a lot of kids a place to go,” says Jorge Leon, Green Stampede President and former Stampede student.

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Musically Minded offers classes, concerts and community

nina ott

Musically Minded Academy, a brand new school, community center and concert venue in Rockridge, opened its doors to students of every age this January. Singers, drummers, and classic pianists—and no matter what their experience level—can find a place at this progressive, nonprofit facility.

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Hats and scarves required in classrooms as OUSD works to restore heat

Second graders at Chabot Elementary work on a writing assignment in a newly-heated classroom on Wednesday. The District is scrambling this week to fix heaters at schools, like Chabot, which found themselves without heat after the Thanksgiving break.

Until Monday morning, Chabot Elementary School, like several other schools in the Oakland Unified School District, was still struggling to heat all of its classrooms in the cold days following Thanksgiving break. Last week in the school’s newly constructed “D-building,” which houses first and second grade students, teachers were forced to hold class in the hallways, administrators said, which were warmer than the unheated classrooms.

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Educators against teachers’ salary measure

By HENRY JONES OCT. 9 — Oakland education leaders are joining in what some would consider a surprising fight: one against raising teacher salaries. They joined labor leaders and Assemblyman Sandré Swanson at a news conference today outside the state building in downtown Oakland to voice their opposition to Measure N, a parcel tax that would…

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School board to parents: No closures for now

By LINNEA EDMEIER Oct. 8 — The anxiety over the possibility of some school shutdowns played out in tonight’s Oakland Board of Education meeting as individuals and groups took the microphone to passionately say, “Don’t close our small schools.” In the wake of announcing a plan to study closing certain schools in order to increase…

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At North Oakland’s Civicorps, “working green” is part of school

story and audioslides by LINNEA EDMEIER Sept. 21 — Reading, writing, arithmetic and recycling? For students of Civicorps Elementary School, in North Oakland, Saturday’s Coastal Cleanup Day wasn’t just another day at the beach. It was another day of fulfilling Civicorps’s mission of “participating in the life of the community.” At Saturday’s event, Resek, a…

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Back to school for OUSD Board of Education

Put into state receivership five years ago, the Oakland Unified School District is close to regaining full authority. The Board’s agenda for Wednesday’s 4:00 meeting is packed with programs and initiatives intended to improve student performance and district financial stability. By focusing on those two goals, the Board moves closer to being completely out of state receivership by the end of the school year.

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