Community

Kaplan, Bas, Thao, and Fife Release Plan to Save Head Start Child Care Centers

Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, President Pro Tempore Sheng Thao, and Council Member Carroll Fife, in coordination with extensive community support, are working to demand an equitable reopening of Head Start child care centers in Oakland’s most underserved communities at the September 1, 2021, Special City Council Meeting.

Published

5 years ago

August 29, 2021

Christy Price

Oakland Head Start LOGO/City of Oakland

Oakland, CA – Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, President Pro Tempore Sheng Thao, and Council Member Carroll Fife, in coordination with extensive community support, are working to demand an equitable reopening of Head Start child care centers in Oakland’s most underserved communities at the September 1, 2021, Special City Council Meeting. Oakland community members put out an urgent statement demanding the protection of vitally needed services provided by the Head Start Centers. The Council members have released an action plan to stop the planned closures of the Head Start programs, which if allowed to close, will disproportionately impact our hardest-hit communities.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, working mothers have been the most impacted by cuts to the workforce resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The closures of schools and childcare centers created a scarcity in childcare providers causing childcare costs to reach an all-time high in 2020. As California is reopening, mothers are finding it harder to rejoin the workforce due to the lack of affordable childcare. This group of Oakland leadership are deeply concerned with the lack of equity in the City Administration’s plan to close childcare centers, as it is inequitable, and plans to close the Arroyo Viejo, Franklin, and Tassafaronga centers, all located in Oakland’s most underserved communities. The planned closures disproportionately aim cuts at Black people, and worsen suffering in Oakland’s hardest-hit communities, low-income families, and people of color. The planned cuts also involve inequitable layoffs of the workers and undermine our community’s economic recovery at a precarious time.

The Council members have submitted their proposal, to amend the budget to save the Head Start centers, with urgency for the Special Council meeting of September 1, 2021. The loss of these Head Start centers is causing an urgent crisis in service, violates our equity principles and has prioritized in this struggling economy, as struggling workers can’t go to jobs if their childcare is taken away and children lose the stability of early learning centers. If the City Council does not take action, these Head Start Centers would close in September 2021.

Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan states, “We must prioritize equity in our City’s COVID-19 recovery plan and allowing our most impacted communities to have vitally needed services is a high priority. Head Start is an important program which helps children, with lifelong positive impacts on their future, and ensures access to economic recovery for struggling working parents. The Administration’s plan to close these needed centers and layoff these essential workers, while hiding the information from the Council and the public for months, is inappropriate. We need to provide equity and transparency and protect vital services for our communities. I am calling on everyone involved to help pass this plan to save Head Start, to support providing these services for all of Oakland’s communities.”

“Our most vulnerable children and families in Oakland must be supported. The Franklin Head Start Center serves a diverse community in District 2, from the Chinatown to Eastlake to San Antonio neighborhoods, and I am fighting to protect the services for these families and the jobs for the workers caring for our children.” Nikki Fortunato Bas, Council President and District 2 Representative.

“Robust investment in Head Start is investment in our future; it is long-term public safety planning; it is the right thing to do. Our local government cannot allow Head Start to fail. To do so would be to continue the practice of State-sanctioned discrimination that creates new racialized disparities and perpetuates existing ones. It is our responsibility to intervene to ensure that every single frontline worker caring for families and young people in our Head Start centers be able to keep their jobs. I am disheartened to find out that this urgent matter has been brewing for months and has only now come to the attention of the city’s elected leaders as a crisis to fix. As a working-class Black woman, like many of our Head Start providers, I have lived experience in needing access to affordable childcare. And as an elected official, I am committed to doing what it takes to keep our centers open, funded and accessible to the families who need them most.” Carroll Fife, Council Member District 3.

The Oakland Post’s coverage of local news in Alameda County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support community newspapers across California.

Christy Price

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Oakland Post: Week of September 2 – 8, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 2 – 8, 2026

Published

20 hours ago

September 7, 2026

Oakland Post

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Business

Longtime BWOPA Member Brendalyn Goodall Appointed to California Workforce Development Board

Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed longtime Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) member Brendalynn Goodall to the California Workforce Development Board. Goodall, an Oakland resident with decades of experience in public service, has held leadership positions focused on

Published

1 week ago

August 30, 2026

Post News Group

Post Co-Publisher Gay Plair Cobb with Brendalynn Goodall. Courtesy photo.

By California Black Media

Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed longtime Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) member Brendalynn Goodall to the California Workforce Development Board.

Goodall, an Oakland resident with decades of experience in public service, has held leadership positions focused on employment, aging services and assistance for underserved communities.

“Brendalynn will be a great addition to this Board,” said Gay Plair Cobb, who served as former state Assemblyman Sandre Swanson’s alternate to the California Workforce Development Board (CWDB).

“She understands that California’s non-profit organizations serve persons who have the most significant barriers to their labor market success and that the Board should help these groups navigate the complicated requirements of state funding.

“In other words, she will be a strong advocate for our most marginalized populations. Her voice is needed now, more than ever.”

CWDB works with the governor to shape workforce policies, programs and investments designed to strengthen the state’s economy. It collaborates with employers, workers, labor organizations, educational institutions, community groups and California’s 45 local workforce development boards to expand access to quality jobs and respond to regional employment needs.

According to the board, its work includes coordinating state programs and guiding investments in workforce training and development.

BWOPA California celebrated the appointment, describing Goodall as a dedicated advocate for workers, families and older adults.

“Her appointment reflects a lifetime of leadership, service, and unwavering commitment to strengthening California’s workforce and expanding opportunity for all,” the organization stated in a press release.

Goodall served as summer jobs program coordinator in the Oakland Mayor’s Office from 2012 to 2014. In that position, she helped connect young people with employment opportunities and job experience.

Before joining the Mayor’s Office, Goodall was division manager for Aging and Adult Services in the City of Oakland Human Services Department from 2002 to 2011. She previously served as senior services supervisor and program director for the city’s Department of Aging, Health and Human Services from 1990 to 2002.

Goodall is also a member of the California Commission on Aging, which advises the governor and state officials on policies and programs affecting older Californians.

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Black History

Jackie Wright Champions Bay Area Stories, Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions

As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.

Published

1 week ago

August 30, 2026

Post News Group

Jackie Wright of Wright Enterprises. Photo courtesy of Wright Enterprises.

By Carla Thomas

Jackie Wright has spent more than two decades helping people, organizations and communities understand the power of a well-told story.

As founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a San Francisco-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, Wright has built a career spanning journalism, public relations, media relations, crisis communications, community engagement and multimedia storytelling.

Wright’s commitment to storytelling is also deeply personal. She wrote and co-directed the 15-minute documentary, “Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor,” which chronicles the story of her parents, Specialist Five (S5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida Fay McClendon Wright. Her father, a U.S. Army helicopter crew chief, died in Vietnam in 1964 while serving as an honor guard during a visit by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Decades later, Wright and her siblings had their father exhumed from a segregated cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, and their mother moved from her burial place in Georgia so the couple could be reunited at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014.

The family journey later took Wright and her sister to Vietnam, where they discovered the former military compound that had been named in honor of their father and another fallen soldier. The documentary, centered on love, war, family, racial understanding, and remembrance, earned festival recognition at screenings.

“It was quite an honor to learn about my family’s history and share it on film,” said Wright.

That filmmaking experience complements Wright’s longstanding advocacy for independent cinema. She has served as a media partner and brand ambassador for Bay Area film festivals, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Oakland International Film Festival, and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.

“It’s important to help filmmakers and underrepresented stories reach broader audiences,” said Wright.

Whether promoting a neighborhood organization, championing an independent filmmaker or preserving her own family history, Wright has remained consistent. Through Wright Enterprises, she has turned communications into both a profession and a form of community service, telling stories that might otherwise go unheard.

“Our stories are an integral part of our history, and our history is not only American history, but worldwide,” she said.