Community

Manzanita SEED Community Says Teacher Consolidations Harm Students

Sasaki, Davis and Hutchinson all pointed to not having enough teachers as a root cause of the issue causing consolidations. Sasaki and Davis pointed to plans already in place by the district to improve recruitment.

Published

5 years ago

October 9, 2021

Isabelle Price

High angle shot of a group of businesspeople holding a plant growing in soil

As Oakland Unified School District’s Manzanita SEED Elementary school lost a teacher on Monday to a consolidation process that placed her at another site, the school’s community is reeling from her absence, and parents and teachers are hoping the process can work differently in the future.

“Kids were crying because their original teacher is leaving,” said Anne Perrone, a third-grade teacher who has worked for OUSD for over 20 years. “They’re nervous because the two months of experience they had with her and the protocols she’d set up are now up in the air.”

OUSD forced a fourth-grade teacher to leave Manzanita SEED as enrollment numbers were far lower than what the district had projected for that site, while other sites, most notably Sojourner Truth Independent Study, had far more students than the district had planned for.

“Given that some of our schools and classes still don’t have permanent teachers, we have to take teachers at the schools with too few students and put them in classes at other schools that don’t have enough teachers,” wrote John Sasaki, OUSD’s director of communications, in an email to The Oakland Post.

The steps in the process of consolidation are guided by the teacher’s contract that OUSD and the teacher’s union, OEA, have agreed to. According to the contract, when a consolidation process requires a teacher to relocate to a different school, the teacher with least seniority at an under-enrolled site is chosen to leave unless another teacher at the site volunteers to leave instead.

In this instance, the process required that a fourth-grade native Spanish speaker leave Manzanita SEED, a school that offers instruction to all students in both English and Spanish. While that fourth-grade teacher asked not to be named in this article, she confirmed she was relocated to Sojourner Truth Independent Study, a OUSD school that is currently offering online learning and does not offer dual language instruction. The site has higher enrollment numbers than anticipated due to COVID.

“The consolidation process that exists didn’t factor in the pandemic, and that our enrollment numbers are going to be impacted by that in ways we have never seen,” said Jill Karjian, a parent to a third-grade student at Manzanita SEED.

The consolidation process is organized around an attendance count taken 20 days into the school year, but Karjian feels the attendance could soon grow at her school if students start opting for in-person learning when vaccines become available for 5- 11-year-olds. The Los Angeles Times reported such vaccines could begin to become available as early as November.

The departure of the fourth-grade teacher also affected the school’s third grade classes. Another Manzanita SEED teacher, who had been teaching third grade, replaced the fourth grade teacher. Three third-grade classes were then merged into two classes, causing class sizes to go from 18 to 27 students. Anne Perrone reports about half her third-grade students have been testing two grades or more behind their grade level for both math and reading due to the pandemic making learning more difficult last year. The lower than usual class sizes had been helpful for getting her students caught up. Now that class sizes have suddenly risen, she’s worried.

“I’m not Wonder Woman,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to reach all the students in the way I want and need to.”

On September 21, four days after the Manzanita SEED community heard official word that their school would be consolidated, Karijian sent out an email, co-signed by 35 other parents, that asked to meet with Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Tramell, Chief Academic Advisor Sondra Aguilera, and Chief Talent Officer Tara Gard, to discuss the situation and propose alternative solutions.

The parents never heard a response. Perrone said teachers and parents had ideas such as bringing in school administrators who have teaching credentials to fill in vacancies, partnering with local teaching programs at universities to offer student teachers the vacancies, and offering increased pay to entice new teachers to fill in vacancies using COVID relief money.

In more than an hour of public comments at a School Board meeting on September 22, teachers, parents and students urged the board to stop the district’s normal practice of consolidations. But there were no resolutions related to the issue proposed and the Board did not take up the issue on their agenda. By October 5, Manzanita SEED had lost their teacher.

“Teacher consolidations can be very painful because they disrupt the relationships that students have made at the beginning of the year, so everyone wants to avoid them as much as possible,” wrote District 1 School Board Director Sam Davis in an e-mail to The Oakland Post.

When asked why the issue was not taken up at a Board meeting, Davis wrote “…for me personally, since no teachers were being laid off, it was not an issue of budgeting but a lack of sufficient staffing for all of our classrooms.” He also pointed out that since “the process of consolidation is part of the contract with OEA,” the board does not have the power to unilaterally change that process. Instead, it needs to be negotiated through OEA.

In an interview with The Oakland Post, District 5 School Board Director Mike Hutchinson said that the issue was brought to his attention at the last minute, when the first schools were being notified of their consolidations, at which point it was too late for him to bring the issue to the Board.

“There literally was nothing I could do substantially besides pressuring behind the scenes at that point,” Hutchinson said. “This is the first time most people have heard of consolidations. I’m hoping with this awareness, we can improve upon this going forward.”

Hutchinson said, in previous years, consolidations had resulted in 20-30 teachers being affected. Sasaki wrote that in the past, the consolidation process has resulted in some teachers being laid off. This year, eight teachers were moved, and none were laid off. Davis wrote that he posed a lot of questions to Johnson-Tramell and her team about consolidations and that teachers being moved was ultimately limited as much as possible.

Hutchinson called the fact that much fewer consolidations happened this year than other years “a victory behind the scenes” but also acknowledged that some schools still felt a devastating impact through the consolidation process.

“This was something that was frustrating this year,” Hutchinson said, “because we can’t address it while it’s already happening. But we can definitely all address it for next year so we don’t have this happen again.”

According to Hutchinson, through contract negotiations with the district, OEA could have more flexibility with the consolidation process. Consolidations do not have to be attached to 20-day attendance counts, class sizes could be lowered, and OEA could propose different methods in its next contract.

“I would really recommend the union start preparing for next year,” said Hutchinson. “If teachers don’t like the way this consolidation process works, they should work to change the language in their contract.”

Hutchinson suggested changing the teacher contract to give new teachers who would otherwise be laid off an extra probationary year where the district could work to help improve their performance, so more teachers could get the aid they need to remain in Oakland public schools.

Perrone is frustrated to be stuck dealing with the instability of losing a teacher through consolidation and hopes OUSD can improve the situation in the near future. She calls consolidations a “Band-Aid approach” that does not work to fix anything.

“I think this is a turning point, we can either fix some of these long-term educational problems or we can create more entrenched inequalities that will go on for generations,” Perrone said.

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.

Isabelle Price

Posts by Isabelle Price

Up Next

When the A’s Moved to Oakland, They Ripened into World Champions, Now Some Wonder if They Are Rotten to This City

Don't Miss

Greenlining Institute Announces Grants to Close Oakland’s Digital Divide

Isabelle Price

Click to comment

Bay Area

Coming to Orinda: A Lecture on Finding the Strength to Heal and Move Past Fear With Divine Love

“Fear can be overcome and even healed in our lives by discovering the strong connection and relationship we have to something bigger than ourselves—God,” says Lisa Troseth, practitioner of Christian Science healing and international speaker. “By learning to lean and rely on this greater, higher good, we can feel moved to love beyond ourselves—and this frees us from fear and so much more.”

Published

1 hour ago

May 15, 2026

Oakland Post

Lecturer Lisa Troseth will speak on "Moving past fear to healing" on May 23 at the Orinda Library Auditorium. Photo courtesy of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.

By Oakland Post Staff

Lisa Troseth, practitioner of Christian Science healing and international speaker, will present her talk, “Moving Past Fear – to Healing,” on May 23, at 2:30 PM, at the Orinda Library Auditorium.

The talk will focus on universal healing precepts found in the Holy Bible, especially in Christ Jesus’ life and teachings, showing how they are available for anyone to understand and experience through the lens of Christian Science. The talk is free, open to the community, and jointly sponsored by First Church of Christ, Scientist, Orinda and First Church of Christ, Scientist, Oakland.

“Fear can be overcome and even healed in our lives by discovering the strong connection and relationship we have to something bigger than ourselves—God,” says Troseth. “By learning to lean and rely on this greater, higher good, we can feel moved to love beyond ourselves—and this frees us from fear and so much more.”

Sharing examples of healing from her own life and professional practice of Christian Science, Troseth will explain why Christian Science is both Christian and scientific, meaning that people can prove its effectiveness for themselves, as fully described in the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, written by the founder of the Christian Science movement, Mary Baker Eddy.

Troseth will also touch on the life of Mary Baker Eddy, who came to understand, confirm, and teach what she felt was original Christian healing. Eddy herself said she was especially inspired by Jesus’ demand, “He that believes on me, the works that I do will he do also; and greater works than these will he do, because I go unto my Father” (found in the Gospel of John 14:12 in the Bible).

For over 150 years, people around the world have worked to follow Christ Jesus in this practice of Christianity and continue to do so today, experiencing healings of physical ills and personal difficulties.

Lisa Troseth has been a Christian Science practitioner for many years, helping people on a daily basis through this scientific approach to prayer.

She travels from her home base in Nyack, New York, to speak to audiences around the world as a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

EBMUD Enshrines the Legacy of its First Black Board Member William ‘Bill’ Patterson

Patterson, who died in 2025 at the age of 94, was remembered as a tireless advocate, mentor, and public servant whose influence shaped generations across the East Bay.

Published

2 hours ago

May 15, 2026

Oakland Post

William “Bill” Patterson, Jr. Courtesy Peralta College District

By Carla Thomas

On Tuesday, May 12, Oakland honored a towering community figure, William “Bill” Patterson, with the unveiling of a bronze plaque and the renaming of the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) boardroom in downtown Oakland.

Board members, family, colleagues, and mentees gathered to reflect on Patterson’s enduring legacy at the meeting.

Patterson, who died in 2025 at the age of 94, was remembered as a tireless advocate, mentor, and public servant whose influence shaped generations across the East Bay.

“This is well deserved,” said Patterson’s cousin, Maria Simon. “He was such a big part of the Oakland community. It’s heartwarming to know he was known by so many people.

“So many credit him with helping them get their first job. It was especially meaningful when he held the Bible for Mayor Barbara Lee’s swearing-in. He truly believed in the goodness of people, in possibilities, and in the power to bring things to fruition.”

Oakland NAACP President Cynthia Adams described Patterson as a father figure. “He took me under his wing,” she said. “This recognition is a very special moment.”

Fellow NAACP member Robert “Bob” Harris echoed that sentiment, recalling Patterson as “a great member of the NAACP and a proud Kappa Alpha Psi man.”

Patterson’s son, William Patterson Jr., reflected on his father’s professional life.

“My father loved his community, and he loved working with EBMUD and spoke highly of his colleagues,” he said, standing alongside cousin Rise Jones Pichon, a former Santa Clara County Superior Court judge.

EBMUD Board President Luz Gómez praised Patterson’s resilience and dedication.

“As his health declined, he would spend half the day in the hospital and still come to our meetings,” she said. “There will never be another like him.”

Activist Cheryl Sudduth highlighted Patterson’s commitment to workforce development and youth empowerment. “He had the vision to bring water careers to students and the next generation,” she said, noting that participants in one of his initiatives received $2,000 stipends.

Sudduth also summed up one of Patterson’s guiding philosophies: “He told me it’s not enough to have a seat at the table. You need to have access to quality resources, the tools to build the table, and the skills to ensure everyone there can contribute. We should be more than a representation; we should reflect determination.”

EBMUD Board Member Andy Katz emphasized the importance of remembrance.

“When you die, you die twice, physically, and then when people stop saying your name,” he said. “By honoring him this way, his name will continue to be spoken for years to come.”

Others in attendance reflected on Patterson’s broad impact.

“It was a joy to watch him accomplish so much,” said EBMUD Board Member Marguerite Young.

Business leader, Delane Sims added that Patterson became a trusted advisor to multiple Oakland mayors.

“We need young people to learn about him so they can become leaders capable of creating meaningful change,” Sims said.

Following public comments, attendees witnessed the unveiling of the bronze plaque in the boardroom foyer, along with signage officially renaming the space in Patterson’s honor.

Born in 1931, Patterson devoted more than seven decades to public service in Oakland and the broader East Bay. Appointed to the EBMUD Board in 1997, he served for 27 years and became its first African American board president. His leadership extended beyond water governance into civil rights, education, and community development.

A three-term president of the Oakland NAACP, Patterson also advised Oakland’s first Black mayor, Lionel Wilson, and played a key role in advancing equity, public health, and environmental justice. He served on the Urban Strategies Council and the Oakland Public Ethics Commission, further shaping public policy.

In 1971, Patterson was a founding director of the Peralta Colleges Foundation, which provides financial assistance and support to students across Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney College, and Merritt College.

In addition, Patterson mentored countless young people through Oakland’s recreation programs, helping guide future leaders and even professional athletes. Though slight in stature, Patterson will always be remembered as a giant of a man.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Arts and Culture

Against All Odds: Mary Jackson’s Journey to NASA Engineer

Jackson’s life took a significant turn when she was offered the opportunity to work in a wind tunnel, a facility used to test the effects of air moving over aircraft structures. It was here that her passion for engineering truly took flight. However, there was a challenge: to become an engineer, she needed to take advanced courses that were only offered at a segregated high school.

Published

2 hours ago

May 15, 2026

Oakland Post

Mary Jackson. Public domain.

By Tamara Shiloh

When we talk about breaking barriers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the name Mary Jackson deserves a place at the top of the list.

Jackson was born in 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, a place that would later become central to her groundbreaking work. From an early age, she showed a strong aptitude for math and science—subjects that, at the time, were not widely encouraged for African American women. But Jackson was not one to be limited by expectations. She earned degrees in mathematics and physical science from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), setting the foundation for a career that would change history.

Before joining NASA, Jackson worked as a teacher and later as a research mathematician at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the agency that eventually became NASA. Like many African American women of her time, she began her career as a “human computer,” performing complex calculations by hand. It was in this environment that she worked alongside brilliant minds like Katherine Johnson, forming part of a powerful group of African American women whose calculations helped launch America into space.

Jackson did something truly remarkable. She petitioned the city of Hampton for permission to attend those classes. She didn’t accept “no” as an answer. And she won.

In 1958, Jackson became NASA’s first African American female engineer.

But Jackson’s impact didn’t stop there.

Later in her career, she chose to step away from her engineering position—not because she couldn’t continue, but because she wanted to make a difference. She moved into roles focused on equal opportunity, working to ensure that women and minorities had access to the same opportunities she fought so hard to get.

Jackson’s story gained wider recognition through the book and film Hidden Figures, which highlighted the contributions of African American women at NASA. But long before the spotlight found her, Jackson was doing the work—quietly, persistently, and brilliantly.

Jackson retired from Langley in 1985. Among her many honors were an Apollo Group Achievement Award and being named Langley’s Volunteer of the Year in 1976. She served as the chair of one of the center’s annual United Way campaigns and a member of the National Technical Association (the oldest African American technical organization in the United States).

She and her husband Levi had an open-door policy for young Langley recruits trying to gain their footing in a new town and a new career. A 1976 Langley Researcher profile might have done the best job capturing Mary’s spirit and character, calling her a “gentlelady, wife and mother, humanitarian and scientist.”

For Jackson, science and service went hand in hand.

She died on Feb. 11, 2005, at age 83, at a convalescent home in Hampton, Virginia.