Education

School District Prepares for Second Round of School Closures

Published

5 years ago

June 28, 2019

The district also is beginning the process of selling or leasing school properties.

The Board of Education is moving ahead with a second set of school closures, mergers and consolidations, called “Cohort 2,”which is scheduled to be approved in August.

The plan, called the “Blueprint for Quality Schools Update,” was presented to the community at the June 19 school board meeting by Supt. Kyla Johnson Trammell and Yvette Renteria, Deputy Chief of Innovation, who promoted the district’s decision to reduce the number of Oakland schools as a way to save money and improve the quality of the remaining schools.

Opposing the administrators’ approach were Oakland Education Association (OEA) members who participated in the district’s Ad Hoc Committee on school closure, which was established to provide community involvement in the process.

OEA members on the committee criticized the district for lack of transparency and engagement with the community, saying that except for the teacher union representatives on the committee, all of the 15-20 participants in the closed-door meetings were selected by the district.

The OEA teachers’ counter report, presented at the board meeting by OEA member and Reach Academy teacher Megan Bumpus, said there is no evidence or research from the wave of school closures across the country that indicates that shutting down public schools saves money or improves the remaining schools and particularly harms Black and Brown students, who overwhelmingly are those who are most impacted.

Asked by the Oakland Post for a list of school closings for next year that are scheduled to be approved in a little over a month, the district produced a PowerPoint slide called “Cohort 2 Scenarios,” which indicated it was “applying recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee” but was more murky than transparent about what the district is planning to do.

Listed on the PowerPoint slide were possible mergers of Kaiser Elementary School with Sankofa on the Sankofa campus, which might also include Peralta and the “soon-to-be-vacant” Santa Fe Elementary. Also mentioned were a merger of Manzanita SEED, Manzanita Community School, Oakland SOL and Fruitvale Elementary, which might be redesigned. A proposed expansion of Melrose Leadership Academy and a new location for Oakland SOL “may impact nearby schools,” the slide said.

The goal of these changes, according to the administrators’ presentation, is to “concentrate resources in fewer schools,” based on the idea that “with fewer schools, central office supports and services will be more efficient and leaner.”

According to the plan, the campuses of schools that will be closed can be leased or sold to generate income. With more money and fewer schools, the plan says optimistically, the district will recruit and retain better school leaders. In addition, “larger schools provide opportunities for teachers to collaborate and support one another.”

The OEA teachers’ rebuttal was blunt. “If the goal is saving money, closing schools won’t do that. If the goal is expanding access to quality schools, closing school won’t do it,” the report said.

“As the district has been unable to provide any research-based rational for closing, consolidating or merging schools…OEA members of the Ad Hoc Committee could not participate in the misleading survey the district staff used to develop the committee’s recommendations or sign onto (those) recommendations,” said Bumpus, speaking at the board meeting.

When OEA members pressed administrator Renteria about how much money the district saved when it closed five schools in 2011-2012, she replied “We don’t have information on what money was saved,” the report said.

“Fourteen of the 18 OUSD schools closed since 2002 now house charter schools, which we know are leeching $57 million annually from students in Oakland,” Bumpus said, citing the OEA report.

“Given the realities of the OUSD’s highly class- and race-segregated schools and an enrollment process that disproportionately concentrates need, it is no mistake that schools targeted for closure and consolidation have student populations in which African American, Latinx, special education students and students with trauma are highly represented,” she said, adding that 17 of the 18 schools closed since 2001 were majority African American.

Looking at the closure of Cohort 1 school Roots International Academy, a neighborhood middle school in East Oakland, Bumpus said teachers “rebuke the district for the irreparable harm done to the Roots community in this past school year” and called on the district to “take the path of improvement,” rather than the path of closures.

The district’s 7-11 Committee, charged with approving “surplus properties for sale or lease, was scheduled Wednesday evening to be approved by the school board to begin considering the sale or lease of “First Phase Properties.”

The four vacant properties are: Edward Shands Adult School, Tilden CDC, Piedmont CDC, Webster CDC and Sankofa CDC.

The district currently has 86 schools. The Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT), a state-funded nonprofit that has been driving school closures in Oakland since 2003, has said publicly that the district should not have more than about 50 schools.

The full report on school closings by OEA members is available at http://bit.ly/OEAAdHocReport

Ken Epstein

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Activism

Lend A Hand Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Lend A Hand Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. On stage: KTVU Fox 2 Broadcasters Roberta Gonzales and Dave ClarkDance-A-Vision Founder, Carla Service, Vice Mayor Kimberly Mayfield-Lynch, California State Assemblymember Mia Bonta and Lend A Hand Foundation Executive Director Dee Johnson with the Dance-A-Vision Dancers. Photo By Carla Thomas

Published

18 mins ago

May 18, 2024

Oakland Post

Lend A Hand Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. On stage: KTVU Fox 2 Broadcasters Roberta Gonzales and Dave ClarkDance-A-Vision Founder, Carla Service, Vice Mayor Kimberly Mayfield-Lynch, California State Assemlbymember Mia Bonta and Lend A Hand Foundation Executive Director Dee Johnson with the Dance-A-Vision Dancers. Photo By Carla Thomas

By Carla Thomas

The Lend A Hand Foundation (LAHF) celebrated the 25th anniversary of the organization’s Stay In School Program on May 9 at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland.

Themed “Together We Can Empower Our Youth to Stay in School,” the event featured a pre-event reception featuring Oakland’s Kev Choice Ensemble.

The ensemble featured Oakland School for the Arts student, Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old, up-and-coming tenor saxophone jazz musician. The master and mistress of ceremonies were local broadcasters Dave Clark and Roberta Gonzales of KTVU Fox 2. Clark’s wife, Lucretia also supported the program.

A special appearance featured Dwayne Wiggins of Tony! Toni! Toné! on guitar, performing the group’s hit song “Anniversary” as guests dined on salmon, chicken, beef and vegetarian entrees prepared by the Food Network “Chopped” Champion, Chef Rashad Armstead of Oakland. California State Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) provided the keynote address and the Carla Service Dance-A-Vision youth dancers energetically performed a hip hop routine throughout the audience in white leotards as attendees clapped along. An auction led by Auctioneer Franco Finn assisted in raising funds for the organization with prizes that included a luxury resort vacation and other items.

LAHF presented District 5 Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson and District 4 Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley with Lifetime Supporter Awards. LAHF presented the Trailblazer Award to Guy Richardson of Ernst and Young; Dante Green of Kaiser Permanente; Antioch Attorney Gordon Greenwood of the Kazan McClain Partner’s Foundation; and Sarah Yoell of PG&E.

Oakland Unified School District Superintendent, Dr. Kyla Trammel Johnson acknowledged LAHF’s impact.

“Each year, LAHF gives backpacks and school supplies to thousands of students across Oakland,” said Johnson. “In 2022 the effort topped 25,000 students. No matter the need, big or small, involving lots of students or just one, Lend A Hand is always there ready to make a difference in the lives of our young people.”

Founder and executive director of LAHF Dee Johnson took the stage as the DJ played the Sledge Sisters’ “We Are Family.”

Guests gave Johnson a standing ovation as she thanked supporters and presented many of them with gifts.

“It’s heartbreaking to know some children don’t have clothes or supplies for school,” said Johnson. “The babies really need our support and when we deliver supplies to them, it makes them really happy.”

Since the LAHF Annual Stay in School Program began in 1999, it has provided over 150,000 educational school supply kits to students throughout Alameda County, including Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, and San Leandro, among other cities.

“This past August, we provided for over 12,000 students with supplies, with the help and support of our very generous donors,” said Johnson. “This year, we aim to do all we can to match that amount or provide even more.”

For more information visit: www.LendaHandFoundation.org

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Community

Dasia Taylor: A Girl’s Powerful Success Story Is Inspiring the Next Wave of STEAM Leaders

Dasia Taylor’s journey began as a young girl in high school in her AP chemistry class. Her teacher at Iowa City’s West High School had just asked which students wanted to try out for the school’s science fair team. Taylor volunteered. At the time, Taylor was a high-school junior focusing on the humanities. She was already overcommitted as a member of the student senate, her district’s diversity and equity committee, and an array of other “anti-racism initiatives.” Her family had no history of participating in science fairs – and no desire to attend one, as she wasn’t really into science. However, Taylor says her life and decisions are guided by a simple rule: “Be curious.”

Published

21 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Oakland Post

Courtesy of Society of Science

By Tamara Shiloh

At the time, Taylor was a high-school junior focusing on the humanities.

She was already overcommitted as a member of the student senate, her district’s diversity and equity committee, and an array of other “anti-racism initiatives.” Her family had no history of participating in science fairs – and no desire to attend one, as she wasn’t really into science. However, Taylor says her life and decisions are guided by a simple rule: “Be curious.”

With cash prizes in the four-digit range and competitors polishing concepts and techniques since grade-school, today’s science fair projects are much more advanced than the simple papier-mâché volcanoes we used to see.

Taylor says her chances of entering the science far, let alone winning, were slim to none.

However, she won her next competition, then the one after that. Finally, she ended up in the last stage of the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Super Bowl of high school science competitions. And the publicity resulting from her unlikely story and potentially world-changing proposal made Taylor a viral sensation, putting the bubbly 17-year-old on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’, ‘PBS NewsHour’, CNN, and many other shows.

In fact, equity work was the inspiration for Taylor’s science ideas. Her medical suture, which colors beet juice to reveal an infected surgical wound, is based on research that shows that Black individuals are particularly vulnerable to post-surgical complications such as infection – and that what appears on some patients’ skin as simple signs of infection, like a red patch and swelling, doesn’t show up on darker skin.

Taylor’s suture concept, which she is trying to patent, could provide a simple low-cost fix in poor countries where infections that can easily be treated are often fatal.

Two years after her forum-moments virilization, at 19, Taylor is a college student, but also the founder and CEO of VariegateHealth, creating inclusive medical devices; and the owner of her own “head nerd brand.”

“My life’s work is helping kids embrace their inner nerd and just be their authentic selves,” Taylor says.

Through “hands-on innovation workshops,” she inspires teenagers to make science bolder. By bolder, Taylor says she means more exciting and socially meaningful.

By the time the debate wrapped up, Taylor had been chosen for the 2023 Iowa’s Woman of the Year prize by USA Today, which annually showcases creative leaders with “stories that influence their communities.”

She was featured in the collection “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women,” which is part of the Rebel Girls series.

Through her innovative work and advocacy for STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) programs, Taylor is proving that it’s possible for students to be curious about the issues that affect their lives, engage in learning experiences not just in the classroom but beyond, and change the world.

With this constant motivation and her focus on improving the lives of others, she has become a public speaker, and a role model for the millennial generation worldwide.

Taylor says she has a penchant for the color yellow, music and creating any rule she wants.

Oakland Post

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California Black Media

California Approves $1.3 Billion to Restructure Community Schools

The State Board of Education and Governor Gavin Newsom announced last week that they have approved $1.3 billion in grants to implement a new school initiative that offers students support outside the classroom. According to a press release dated May 8, State education officials have appropriated funds since 2021 to offer students and their families resources such as health care, mental health support, and social services.

Published

1 day ago

May 17, 2024

Oakland Post

The California Department of Education plans to mobilize resources to help students thrive in school and at home. This initiative includes summer programs, tutoring, and counseling.

By California Black Media

According to a press release dated May 8, State education officials have appropriated funds since 2021 to offer students and their families resources such as health care, mental health support, and social services. The State’s board awarded $1.3 billion to 288 local education agencies that fund and support 995 schools statewide.

The California Department of Education plans to mobilize resources to help students thrive in school and at home. This initiative includes summer programs, tutoring, and counseling.

Gov. Newsom said that the state is expanding community schools across the state. Students will be offered free meals twice a day, mental health counseling, and after-school programs.

“California is transforming education to make schools a place where every family and student can succeed,” Newsom said.

The state is developing the initiative as part of the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP), a ten-year plan that promotes equity and quality education for students in California. The state will spend $4.1 billion with its partners including community schools, local counties, government agencies, and nonprofits that provide health, mental health, and social services.

State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond is eager to uplift communities with well-resourced schools and achieve equity in public education.

“We know children learn best when they are healthy, happy, and in a learning environment where they are surrounded by knowledgeable and caring adults attuned to their needs,” Darling-Hammond said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond endorsed current school programs and anticipates promising results as grants are invested in these programs.

“Our Community Schools continue to serve as exemplars of programs that educate the whole child. I am proud to see California continue to be at the forefront of recognizing that student wellness is a cornerstone of learning,” Thurmond said.

The California Department of Education will award a final round of grants to community-based organizations and schools during the 2024-2025 academic year.