Comments on: Statham offered job in D.C. schools

By: Inside Bay Area > > Next week, special ed director follows her old boss's trail to D.C.

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:00:59 +0000

[...] the head of the Oakland school district also just took a job in D.C. Last month, Kim Statham accepted a position in the Washington’s new state [...]

By: Stacey

Stacey — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 01:23:51 +0000

Furthemore, Fact and Fiction person, some central office administrators who could be in the most useless organization UAOS, can choose to be or not be. The fact that they have an option to choose suggests that they (at the top) have guaranteed positions.

By: Jack Gerson

Jack Gerson — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:50:06 +0000

“Fact Not Fiction” might want to change his/her name to “Carefully Selected Facts”.
First: Probationary teachers can be fired without cause, yet OUSD administration threatens to go after their licenses should they resign during the school year. (Contrary to the impression left by “FNF”, the state almost never enforces the section of state education code that allows it to suspend (for at most one year) the licenses of teachers who resign during the school year–UNLESS a school district insists that they do so. Prior to the state administration, OUSD didn’t so insist. Neighboring school districts still don’t.)
Second: In the interest of balance–and in the interest of education Oakland’s children–”FNF” ought to explain why OUSD has closed the libraries and laid off the librarians at several secondary schools, when state education code requires every secondary school to have a library and a credentialed librarian.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:12:45 +0000

I wonder how much the board members have learned. They are mostly the same people that were around for the bankruptcy, and they haven’t faced much opposition. Now, I think highly of most of them, for the job they do as advocates for their schools. And they have all said the right (contrite) things about fiscal responsibility. But after several years of being sidelined are they ready to act like directors, instead of just trustees?

By: turner

turner — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:53:33 +0000

I think everyone has learned from the Oakland bankruptcy. I think everyone has realized from this painful experience that the books must be balanced or else all hell will befall us. Our board will longer be trusting of the administration. They now will ask the hard hitting questions they should have been asking all along.

I also think that the people of Oakland are understanding and supportive…if you are up front with them. At this point, it will take a while to regain the trust and confidence of the people. So much negativity has come through our community. So much suffering has befallen our people., especially our students and teachers.

Having said that, cost cutting always means someone will suffer. So, there will always be wrath when you close a school due to budgetary reasons.

But, if we have honest leaders, dedicated to the success of our students, open to our community, I think the community will come around and support the leaders when the hard decisions need to be made. I believe Oakland has leaders who can step up to the plate and lead, if they are given the chance.

By: Debora

Debora — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:11:30 +0000

I agree that we have the talent in Oakland to fix the problem. My fear, and I believe the fear of many in Oakland is do we have people who can make hard decisions to shut schools when necessary, even with the rath of parents and teachers to balance the school budget? Do we have Oakland leaders who will straight forwardly deal with the violence and bullying by hiring no nonsense principal who will remove violent and or chronically disruptive students from Oakland schools? Do we have people who can stand up and say the school board is wrong is some of their decisions even when it means they may have to step down for doing so?

So, while people can say negative things about Randy Ward and Kimberly Statham, we have not had leaders in Oakland in over a decade who can put in place the systems and balanced budgets they have.

By: turner

turner — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:55:40 +0000

I’m all for someone from our community to come in and right our listing ship. Only someone from our community can fix this district. You need to understand the people to understand what they need. You need to live with them; grow up with them; understand their culture; their practices. Oakland is not a test tube; it’s not a lab. You can’t come up with phantasmagoric theories and think you can put them into practice in Oakland. We ain’t like no other place, yo!

And, I am getting sick and tired of others thinking that the people of Oakland are not smart enough to get themselves out of this fix. We have smart and very well educated people in our community. Let’s look for someone like this HERE who can lead us our of our misery. Enough of the hired guns from elsewhere. They have done nothing but mislead us and make our district worse.

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:41:55 +0000

Just a friendly reminder: In the interest of civil dialogue, I ask people to use at least a first name whenever possible. Although I don't have the time or resources to verify the information, I want to avoid obviously fake screen names in this space.

By: Fact Not Fiction

Fact Not Fiction — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:14:41 +0000

While further instability is certainly a problem, there is no double standard. By state law (not Oakland) teachers can gain tenure. To balance this guarantee of employment (which no central office administrator has), one of the things teachers must do is notify the District they are leaving in time to secure a replacement (i.e. June). The state determines the penalty if these provisions are not followed.

By: Frank Oaks

Frank Oaks — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:15:22 +0000

Another top OUSD central administrator who quits, while the schools are in session, to take a better job. Teachers who need to do the same are harassed and threatened with invalidating their credentials by the HR administrators. Isn’t that an unfair double standard? You wonder why Oakland students are at the bottom, in the state, academically. It is a known fact that the OUSD is a training ground and a land of economic and career advancement opportunity for mediocre school administrators who come to Oakland from all over the United States for a few years to experiment with our students, and after failing in their experiments, move on to better grounds. It is so obvious that their number one priority was to solve not the students’ academic problems but their own economic and career problem. The high turn-over of mediocre central administrators at OUSD has been exacerbated with the state take-over. Let’s stop this nonsense with the return of the school district to local control. Let’s support Board president David Kakishiba on his efforts to choose a superintendent who will stay long enough to see through the reforms.