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District Removes Popular Principal and Will “Co-locate” Charter School at Westlake

Published

10 years ago

March 4, 2016

Westlake Middle School students, parents and teachers are angry and confused after learning in the past week that the district has decided to “co-locate” a charter school onto their campus and remove their beloved principal, who they say has played a major role for the past 15 years in making Westlake a stable, thriving full-service community school.

According to teachers at the school, staff has just been told by district administrators that the Downtown Charter Academy will be moving students to Westlake next year and have told Principal Misha Karigaca that Supt. Antwan Wilson wants a “fresh start” at the school based on School Performance Framework data from last school year.

The teachers’ union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), told the Post that the upheaval at Westlake, located 2629 Harrison St., is only one of the schools where Supt. Wilson plans to co-locate a charter school next year.

However, the district says no decisions have been made yet and will not be made by the school board until March 23.

Misha Karigaca

Principal Karigaca, or “Mr. K” as he is called, has the complete backing of the school’s staff, according to Westlake teachers, who did not want their names revealed for fear of retaliation.

“We expected and wanted Misha as our continued leader,” said a teacher, who has worked at the school for almost 10 years.

Under Karigaca’s leadership, Westlake’s program was able to expand, despite continuous budget cuts, to include mental health services and a free after school program, considered one of the best, offering gardening, hip hop and lacrosse.

The school piloted a science academy this year and offers student internships that are connected to agencies based on the young people’s career interests.

Westlake is also slated to be turned into an Arts Magnet School in fall 2017.

Karigaca, who is African American, is one of the last of the homegrown principals who still works for the Oakland Unified School District. His mother was a teacher, and he grew up attending Oakland schools and served as a teacher in Oakland before becoming a principal.

During the most recent labor negotiations between the teachers’ union and the district, he served as a member of the district’s bargaining team, which staff says is a sign that his leadership has been respected and trusted.

Westlake staff say they believe their principal is being punished for not keeping a lid on parent and teacher protests last June, when the district unsuccessfully tried to force the school to “co-locate” a charter high school at the site.

The superintendent is making an example of Karigaca to intimidate employees not to stand up for their school, said the same teacher. “The message is being sent that if you don’t do what I tell you to do, I’m going to chop your head off.”

OEA President Trish Gorham, president of the teachers’ union, says the district has not released a list of charters that will be placed at OUSD schools but that Lafayette Elementary School in West Oakland will be one of the affected sites.

“It’s happening all over,” said Gorham. “This is the total destabilization of established schools. The end result is to degrade the services to Oakland students and families and to disrupt school programs that took years to build.”

According to district spokesman Isaac Kos-Read, the co-locating of charter schools on public school campuses is required by state law

“It’s important to understand that the district is fulfilling its legal obligations under Prop. 39 to offer up underutilized public school space to local public charter schools,” he said. “The spirit of the law (Prop. 39) is one that must be honored.”

“There are successful co-locations across the district, such as King Estates and Castlemont,” Kos-Read said. “Benefits can include increased resources for the site, shared learning opportunities, and collaboration.”

Westlake teachers see the superintendent’s actions as further proof that the superintendent and his team do not care about the teachers or their school.

“They just told us what they are going to do,” said the Westlake teacher. “The input of the teachers, students and families obviously is not important to them.

“The superintendent wants to privatize, whereas our community is trying to rebuild a vibrant public school system,” he said. “Privatizing public education is what he does. That’s what being a reformer means to him.”

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

4 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

6 days ago

March 1, 2026

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke