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Community Day Staff Fear School Site May Be Slated for Housing Development

“Board President Gary Yee has been open about his desire to look at the Community Day School site as a possible location for the creation of educator housing,” Sasaki wrote in an email to The Oakland Post. “He continues to explore that idea.” Yee visited the site during school hours on February 25. Joshua Simon, whose work history includes real estate development and consulting for non-profit organizations, accompanied him.

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Caption: A sign outside of Community Day School's campus. Photo by Zack Haber on March 6.
Caption: A sign outside of Community Day School's campus. Photo by Zack Haber on March 6.

By Zack Haber

Staff who work at Community Day School, which Oakland Unified School District’s Board has scheduled for closure at the end of the academic year, expressed frustration to The Oakland Post about the possibility of the site’s campus being developed into housing. According to OUSD Director of Communication John Sasaki, Board president Gary Yee has been looking to develop the site.

“Board President Gary Yee has been open about his desire to look at the Community Day School site as a possible location for the creation of educator housing,” Sasaki wrote in an email to The Oakland Post. “He continues to explore that idea.”

Yee visited the site during school hours on February 25. Joshua Simon, whose work history includes real estate development and consulting for non-profit organizations, accompanied him.

Yee did not respond to two emails requesting his comment on this story that included questions related to his visit to the school. Simon stated that he did not join Yee during the site visit in any professional capacity.

“As a person with a career of working on nonprofit community benefit projects, I am often asked for my advice,” he wrote in an email to The Oakland Post. “In this case, I had no advice to give. I met with Mr. Yee as a private citizen.”

Community Day School Administrative Assistant Sandra Backer said neither Yee nor Simon signed into the school’s visitor logbook. Staff members objected to the duo coming onto campus unannounced and without signing in during school hours.

“It was very disrespectful and showed a disregard for the policy and safety of our school,” said Vernon ‘Trey’ Keeve III an English teacher at Community Day School. “If you’re visiting a public-school ground, the first thing you should do is sign in.”

Rachel Machtinger, a therapist who works at the school said she “felt angry about them thinking they were just entitled to come onto the campus unannounced.”

In an email Yee sent to Community Days’ principal, which was then forwarded to staff, Yee apologized and stated, “It was insensitive of me to come during the school day and without letting you know in advance.”

Keeve speculated that Yee was checking out the land for a possible development project. This upset Keeve, in part because Yee had not visited the school in recent months as the board was considering whether or not to close the school.

“It felt like a blatant slap in the face,” Keeve said. “So, he has time to come by and survey the land but he doesn’t have time to visit us and see the work we do here? When you consider where our campus is located, it would be a great view if anything gets built there?”

Community Day sits in Oakland’s Leona Heights neighborhood, which features a park in a densely forested redwood groove.

To create housing on its 17-acre campus, Community Day would first have to be closed. Staff and a student at the school have spoken out recently against their school’s planned closure, saying that the site serves a unique purpose that can’t be replaced. Community Day is the only school in Oakland where expelled students can attend in person as they work to clear their expulsion with the district.

To lease or sell Community Day’s campus for housing, the district would also need to form a new 7-11 Committee of community members who would then have to declare its campus as surplus property. There is a recent history of the district forming such a committee, declaring OUSD property as surplus, and then leasing property for housing.

A 7-11 Committee was formed in 2019 and met from May through December of that year.  In 9-1 and 6-4 decisions, that committee voted to declare two vacant OUSD properties, a former adult school and a former child development center, as “surplus.” On June 30 of last year, OUSD’s Board then voted 5-2, with Yee voting yes, to lease these properties for 65 years to Eagle Environmental Construction Inc., a private company that plans to construct market rate units, a job training site for residents, and subsidized housing. The lease stipulates at least half of housing units will be set aside for OUSD employees. Members of Oakland Education Association and SEIU Local 1021 spoke out against the lease during that meeting.

Machtinger, along with Keeve, expressed displeasure at the idea of turning Community Day’s campus into housing and coupling that plan with educator housing. Machtinger felt that profit could be a main motivating factor in such a development.

“It feels dubious to me because it’s such attractive real estate,” she said.

Keeve felt that creating educator housing wouldn’t address the root cause of teachers not making a livable wage in Oakland.

“If there’s ever something capitalism would do, it would be to create ‘teacher housing,’” they said. “Teachers should just be paid a livable wage for the places they live in. It seems like a weird band-aid to put on that gaping wound.”

Keeve said they thought living in “teacher housing” would make it difficult to create a separation between work and leisure. They wouldn’t want to live around a group of people who do the same job as them because it would remind them of work.

“I love my colleges and collaborating with other educators while I’m at work,” they said. “But I also create boundaries.”

These days, the future of Community Day remains unclear, Yee has not publicly declared any plans to pursue housing on the site, and Keeve remains focused on teaching.

“Right now, I just want the students to have a good time and get the things they need before the school year ends, and this place could close down,” they said.

Recently, thousands of community members have been pushing back against school closures in Oakland, including Community Day’s. Since five Board directors, including Yee, voted to formally request the district recommend a list of schools for consolidation in mid-January, they’ve seen pushback from staff, parents, students and community members in the form of protests, teacher and student walkouts, a hunger strike, and over a thousand e-comments and comments against closures before and during meetings.

The community has specifically objected to the closures disproportionate effect on Black and Latinx students. Two Board directors, Mike Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams, have also repeatedly voted against closures. During meetings last month, despite the pushback, the board voted to close, merge or downsize 11 schools over the next two years and then voted against a resolution to delay considering closures set to occur at end of this school year for an additional year.

After the votes, pushback has continued in the hopes that school closures still can be stopped. On March 5, hundreds took to the streets to protest the planned closure of Oakland schools. Oakland’s Education Association is also continuing to pursue legal action to stop the closures by filing an unfair labor practice charge accusing the district of violating a deal they reached in 2019 that requires a one year engagement process before any closures can occur.

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 - 21, 2023

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Activism

Richmond Promise Scholarship Application Deadline Closes March 17

Qualifying applicants can receive up to $1,500 annually for four years toward their post-secondary educational goals at a two-year or four-year college and/or while pursuing a Career Technical Education Certificate at any not-for-profit institution in the U.S. 

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Scholarships are available for high school graduates who want to go to a two-year or four-year college or a nonprofit vocational/technical school. Photo courtesy of Richmond Promise.
Scholarships are available for high school graduates who want to go to a two-year or four-year college or a nonprofit vocational/technical school. Photo courtesy of Richmond Promise.

Calling all high school seniors from Richmond and North Richmond: The Richmond Promise Scholarship Application period for the 2022-2023 school year closes on Friday, March 17.

High school seniors and GED students under the age of 24 who reside in Richmond and North Richmond and attend public, private, or charter schools in West Contra Costa County are eligible to apply for the scholarship.

Qualifying applicants can receive up to $1,500 annually for four years toward their post-secondary educational goals at a two-year or four-year college and/or while pursuing a Career Technical Education Certificate at any not-for-profit institution in the U.S. 

Students can also petition for an additional two years of extra funding. Throughout the process, the program provides supportive services to participating scholars from high school through college graduation, including support with identifying and applying for financial aid.

Richmond Promise launched in 2016 with a $35 million, 10-year investment by Chevron Richmond. The funds are part of a $90 million community benefits agreement between the City of Richmond and Chevron connected to the $1 billion Refinery Modernization Project.

To apply for the Richmond Promise Scholarship, go to https://richmondpromise.tfaforms.net/81. Need some help? Reach out to Richmond Promise at scholarships@richmondpromise.org. Learn more about the organization https://richmondpromise.org/

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report

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Activism

Bay Area Native Dr. Terri Jett Honored by Indiana’s Butler University

Terri Jett arrived at Butler University in 1999 to begin her teaching career as an assistant professor of Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies after earning her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from Auburn University. Originally from California, Jett was unfamiliar with the Hoosier state, but was drawn to the energy of the faculty and students she met at Butler and the opportunity she saw for connecting her teaching and research with the broader Indianapolis community.

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Dr. Terri Jett poses with Butler Blue, the mascot of Butler University. Photo courtesy of Butler University Stories.
Dr. Terri Jett poses with Butler Blue, the mascot of Butler University. Photo courtesy of Butler University Stories.

By Jennifer Gunnels
Butler University Stories

Bay Area native Terri Jett was received a Distinguished Faculty Award at Indiana’s Butler University.

Terri Jett arrived at Butler University in 1999 to begin her teaching career as an assistant professor of Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies after earning her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration from Auburn University.

Originally from California, Jett was unfamiliar with the Hoosier state, but was drawn to the energy of the faculty and students she met at Butler and the opportunity she saw for connecting her teaching and research with the broader Indianapolis community.

More than 20 years later, Jett has excelled at the work she set out to do. Last year, she was named a 2021-22 Distinguished Faculty Award recipient for her profound contributions to Butler University over the course of her career.

In many ways, Jett has been a trailblazer at Butler, including becoming the first Black female to earn tenure, and in 2020 becoming the first Black female to be promoted to full professor. Along with her teaching responsibilities as a member of the faculty, Jett has taken on numerous additional roles over the years including faculty director of the Hub for Black Affairs and Community Engagement (the Hub), member of the Steering Committee of the Race, Gender, Sexuality Studies Program (RGSS), faculty senator, and Faculty Fellow at the Desmond Tutu Peace Lab Think Tank. She also served as Department Chair from 2007-2014, a role she has currently resumed as interim while the current Chair is on sabbatical.

Jett has developed almost two dozen courses — core, departmental, honors, and even taught in our Washington D.C. Semester Program — and is always eager to seize on opportunities to take her students beyond the borders of campus. She has led students on numerous occasions to Selma, Alabama with the Honors course Voting Rights in Black and White: The Case of the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March. She says walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge is always a moving and eye-opening experience for her students that brings the Civil Rights Movement to life in new ways.

Of the many courses she has taught, Jett says one of her favorites to teach is the Politics of Alice Walker, which she teaches nearly every summer. Prior to the pandemic, Jett also offered the course several times at the Indiana Women’s Prison and was able to bring some of her Butler students to visit her class in prison.

Jett is committed to doing good things in the world herself and is known in the Indianapolis community for her service and activism. She currently serves on the board of Indiana Humanities and is appointed by Mayor Joe Hogsett to the Indianapolis Land Improvement Bond Bank Board. She also moderates a series on local PBS station WFYI called Simple Civics, which provides short civics lessons and was nominated for a Great Lakes Region Emmy in 2020 and again in 2021.

Jett says her community activism is inspired in part by a desire to demonstrate how to be an engaged citizen for her students as well as a desire to connect her teaching and research to issues happening within the community.

“And I do it because it’s fulfilling,” she said.

Though Jett has various roles within and outside of Butler, she finds satisfaction in discovering ways to integrate her teaching, research, and service. For instance, her research focuses on agriculture and food justice, and last year she leveraged her area of academic expertise and her role as Faculty Director of the Hub to partner with Indy Women in Food in hosting the organization’s first conference on Butler’s campus focused on food insecurity in the city.

“I’m thrilled when I’m able to do that,” Jett said. “All of the hats that I wear are sort of constantly engaged at the same time, and I like that I get to work like that. I’m not running from one thing to the next, I feel like my work is layered with multiple connection points.”

This article is part of a series honoring the 2021-22 recipients of the Butler University Distinguished Faculty Award. Printed with permission.

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