Community

New School Board Will Grapple with Pandemic, OUSD’s Legacy of Distrust

Published

6 years ago

December 23, 2020

Kiki

Dr. Clifford Thompson

Mike Hutchinson

Members of the school community are looking expectantly to January, when four new school board trustees take their seats, for signs that there will be new directions in Oakland public schools’ leadership.

The new board members – Dr. Clifford Thompson, Mike Hutchinson, VanCedric Williams and Sam Davis – will be called on to work with the other three members of the seven-member board to develop solutions in a district that faces deep divisions over school closings and austerity-driven budget cuts. At the same time, they must also find a path to reopen the city’s classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic that currently requires the district to rely on Internet-based education.

The last few years were marked by intense conflict in Oakland schools. A bitter teachers’ strike filled the streets of Oakland daily with thousands of teachers and their supporters and was widely supported in the community. In the wake of the strike, the school board and the administration stuck by an unpopular decision to close two schools, Roots Academy and Kaiser Elementary. Distrust and anger at the board and administration grew red hot during the prolonged and desperate protests of the schools’ parents and supporters and may have been instrumental in the decisions of the four incumbent board members not to run for re-election this past November.

The Oakland Post spoke this week to the four new board members about their immediate plans and priorities for when they take office in January. Below are interviews with Dr. Thompson and Hutchinson. Next week, the Post will publish the interviews with Williams and Davis.

Dr. Thompson, who will represent District 7, works currently as a fifth-grade teacher in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. He has worked extensively in Oakland schools and has decades of experience as a teacher, principal, administrator and university professor.

He says his immediate goal is to help the schools recover from the pandemic.

“My top priority is getting the kids back to school, but I want to do it in a safe manner,” he said, emphasizing that he will rely on recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

His education goals are to implement school board policies that promote neighborhood schools throughout the city and “disrupt the racism that exists” to create educational opportunity for all students.

Supporting neighborhood schools and increased equity will bring students back to the public schools, he said.

“I remember when Oakland public schools had 54,000 students. Now they have 36,000,” Thompson said. “I’m interested in getting those numbers up. We can do it if we concentrate on a high-quality program like we used to have. Kids will be clamoring to get in.”

Thompson was the only candidate elected to the board in November who was backed by GO Public Schools, a local pro-charter school organization with a lot of influence in the school district. He has worked as an administrator at both charters and public schools.

He says the public battle over the two types of schools misses the point. He does not see himself as someone who supports charters or traditional public schools but as a backer of schools “offering a quality education.”

“I am not a charter school advocate. I’m a solid program advocate,” he said. “I believe we should focus on whether what we are doing benefits students,” he said in an online interview. “Our goal, as educators, is to find what works and use it for our students and their learning.”

Mike Hutchinson, who will represent District 5, is a long-time school advocate who was born in Oakland and attended public schools in the city. He worked in the schools for 20 years until 2012 when the district closed the school where he was working.

He says he will work with the administration to create a post-pandemic reopening that has broad community, family and teacher support.

“Right now, there is not enough trust to create a reopening plan,” he said. “We need to create a process for people to buy in and engage in the plan.”

The district’s current plan is not bad, he said, “but lacks community involvement.” “That’s why there is so much lack of trust. There will be no reopening without a school board vote,” he said.

He says he also wants to strengthen the school board. “One of the changes I’m going to be pushing for is for the school board to assume its full authority,” he said.

He said he has had positive meetings with Supt. Kyla Johnson-Trammell and her staff. “I’m encouraged in meeting with the superintendent that she seemed very receptive to the board playing its (proper) role. It seems like she is ready to make some of these changes.”

The relationship between the board and the administration “has been out of balance since the state took over in 2003,” Hutchinson said. Administrators ran the district, and board members turn their authority over to the superintendent and staff. “(But) it is the board’s job to create policy and create betters schools,” he said.

The first policy change on his list is to modify the district’s Blueprint for Quality Schools to stop school closings.

“This is the policy of school closures and destabilization. I’m going to be eliminating school closures,” Hutchinson said.

Kiki

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Activism

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses. The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Published

7 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Toks Omishakin, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, was one of the speakers at the event. Photo by Shellee Fisher Photography and Design.

By Calvin Naito, Special to The Post

On June 4, a national nonprofit named the Equity in Infrastructure Project (EIP) – which aims to increase public construction contracting opportunities for small and historically underutilized businesses – held a day-long event in downtown San Francisco to rally supporters and build momentum to its cause.

It was attended by more than 100 individuals from public agencies, private firms, and other organizations committed to increasing contracting opportunities with governmental agencies, thereby creating more competition and lowering public costs.

The EIP event was held the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in conjunction with BuildIT, which aims to increase contracting opportunities for LGBT-owned businesses.

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses.

The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Following the workshop, BuildIT hosted a VIP evening reception honoring EIP, whose principals – Phil Washington, John Procari, and Rick Jacobs – accepted the award.

The event also set in motion the coalition’s efforts to implement recommendations from EIP’s “Procurement for Prosperity: A Playbook.”

The Playbook is a practical guide for public agency leaders and procurement and contracting practitioners to grow the capacity of small and first-time contractors, strengthen competition, and deliver better value for taxpayers.

Toks Omishakin, Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a long-time EIP supporter, also told attendees, “This is about commitment. This has been a life’s work. This is a tailwind moment.”

The event’s presenting sponsor was Hub International, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation, which was joined by partners Travelers Insurance and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

After the pledge-signing ceremony, attendees participated in a workshop in which they examined the policies, practices, and programs needed to meet EIP goals, learned from practitioners, and identified next steps toward utilizing the Playbook.

Ingrid Meriwether, formerly of Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) and current president of Hub International’s Aligned Risk Management, MWIS, described the hard-fought lessons she and her MWIS team have learned over the last three decades administering contractor development programs (CDPs) for the City and County of San Francisco, Alameda County, City of Los Angeles, LA Metro, and other municipalities.

The CDPs help small and local construction firms win public infrastructure contracts with these government agencies. The program provides bonding assistance, contract financing, technical support, training, and other services to underrepresented businesses funded by public agencies who seek greater contracting participation with these firms.

Merriwether said programs like these “break down systemic barriers, create greater fairness, and save taxpayers money by enabling more competition. The contractor development programs have, cumulatively, over two decades, helped contractors access over $1 billion in bonding, supporting over $380 million in awarded contracts, and maintaining a loss ratio 250 times lower than the industry average – while saving participating municipalities more than $27 million in contracting costs as a result of enabling more competition.”

Rick Jacobs, EIP co-founder and co-chair urged attendees make plans to meet again in the near future “to continue building on this work, share progress on organizational commitments, and discuss how we can collectively advance the goals of the EIP pledge.”

For more information on the EIP and to access a copy of the Playbook, go online to https://equityininfrastructure.org/

Calvin Naito is communications manager for Equity in Infrastructure Project.

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Oakland Museum Presents Landmark Retrospective Celebrating Beloved Bay Area Artist Mildred Howard

“Poetics of Memory” coincides with a year of major recognition for Howard. In 2026, she received the California Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary Award, honoring artists whose work has shaped California’s cultural and civic life, as well as the Museum of the African Diaspora’s Artist Impact Award. In 2025, she was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of her transformative contributions to American cultural life.

Published

7 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Mildred Howard. Photo by Christine Cueto for the Oakland Museum of California, 2025.

Special to The Post

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) opened “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory,” the first major museum survey of Bay Area artist Mildred Howard, on June 12.

The exhibition spans five decades of Howard’s influential work, bringing together immersive installations, found-object sculptures, archival materials, and new commissions that explore memory, identity, and power in American life.

Howard was born in San Francisco in 1945 and raised in the East Bay, where she went on to study Afro-Haitian dance, make and sell clothing, and experiment with collage and sculpture.

Her multimedia art practice emerged from these experiences, later becoming associated with West Coast conceptual art, San Francisco funk, and a vibrant community of artists like Oliver Jackson, Betye Saar, and Raymond Saunders. Since the 1970s, she has used found materials and family stories to explore memory—both individual and collective.

At OMCA, visitors enter “Poetics of Memory” through a series of intimate galleries featuring Howard’s early mixed-media pieces and sculptures, along with a large video projection of a number of her public artworks.

Together, they emphasize Howard’s interest in everyday objects as powerful carriers of individual and shared stories. Highlights include collages that remix images of the artist herself; found-object sculptures like The History of the United States with a few Parts Missing (2007) that address omissions in dominant narratives; and public works like “Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges” (2001) that transform urban space into a meditation on access and labor.

This culminates in a richly detailed “studio” environment, where works in progress, archival exhibition flyers, historic photographs of Howard and her community, postcards from fellow artists, and other materials offer insight into her creative process and daily life.

The exhibition then opens into a high-ceilinged, dramatically lit space that brings together Howard’s signature immersive installations. On one end, “Crossings” (1997/2026) – a field of hundreds of ceramic eggs leading to an ornate mirror – suggests cycles of birth, motherhood, and transition, while drawing on the emotional echoes of the Middle Passage. On the other end, “Blackbird in a Red Sky” (a.k.a. “Fall of the Blood House”) (2002) – a red glass shack bordered by a pond – also uses reflection and transparency to draw viewers into the work and prompt consideration of themes of identity and home.

Howard’s newest video installation, “Moving Stills” (2026), repurposes never-before-seen family footage she took as a teenager on a train trip to the American South. Projected onto cascading layers of translucent fabric that stretch across an entire gallery wall, the piece immerses viewers in a layered meditation on memory, migration, and time.

The “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory” exhibit will be on display through Oct. 11 at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland, CA 94612. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Fridays to 9 p.m.

This story is sourced from the Oakland Museum of California press office.

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Ferry Fares to Increase July 1 as Ridership Hits Record Highs

The Oakland and Alameda routes will increase from $4.90 to $5.10, the South San Francisco route will go up from $7.40 to $7.60, and the Vallejo route will increase from $9.90 to $10.

Published

7 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Courtesy photo.

By Mike Aldax, The Richmond Standard

Starting July 1, the standard adult fare for the San Francisco Bay Ferry route between Richmond and San Francisco will increase to $5.20, up from the current $4.90.

Discounted fares for eligible passengers, including youth, seniors, people with disabilities, and Clipper START users, will rise to $2.60 from the current $2.40. Children under 5 will continue to ride for free.

The Oakland and Alameda routes will increase from $4.90 to $5.10, the South San Francisco route will go up from $7.40 to $7.60, and the Vallejo route will increase from $9.90 to $10.

The adjustments are part of a systemwide fare update approved by the agency’s Board of Directors, which is moving away from a flat 3% annual increase to route-specific pricing for the 2027 and 2028 fiscal years.

This fare update arrives as San Francisco Bay Ferry celebrates a historic May, transporting 301,270 passengers. The record-breaking figure represents an 8% increase over May 2025 and marks the third consecutive month of record-setting ridership.

Furthermore, it is the sixth month in a row that passenger numbers have exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Weekend travel has been a primary driver of this growth, with average weekend ridership seeing a 56% increase compared to pre-pandemic trends.

The agency states that the fare adjustments are necessary to ensure the long-term fiscal sustainability of public ferry services. By shifting to route-specific adjustments, the agency aims to offset rising operating costs while maintaining the high levels of service frequency and reliability.