The other frustrating thing about the options process, is that we don’t ever seem to have time to make our school better, because by October or November we are too busy doing a dog and pony show.. Between constant turnover in teachers and administration, and reeling from the ramifications of projected enrollment numbers(which form the basis of many organizing school principles such as teaching positions and master schedules), we simply do not have enough time to clean up all the pieces and create a working solution(in october) before we are asked to prove our worth for the following year. So instead of administration working to fix the school for the current year, they are taking parent groups around the school and trying to figure out how best to make our school look good instead of being given the time to do the work so the school can look good on its own merits!

This year, we had to consolidate an elective teacher, and since the master schedule did not intend for this to happen, my 4th period class is nearly twice the size of my other classes, because that elective class was the only class that my students could go, to elleviate class size. Now, the students in that class have a harder time getting access to the material then my other classes due to sheer numbers alone. Yet, we can’t do anything else, without throwing the whole schedule out the window, which is not a reality in October.

Is it possible to make the options process more binding? It makes struggling schools struggle even more and creates wait lists for the high performing schools. When we as teachers don’t equip our students with every stability, and possible organizational and academic advantage we are considered bad teachers for leaving students in flux, as it widens the achievement gap between the haves and the have nots. Yet when we give a steady stream of students to the high performing schools and leaving other schools with an erratic and changing enrollment numbers its called equity? This process, while good intentioned is hurting our schools BIG TIME and needs to be revamped or scrapped!

We have the power, as a community to change our schools and change district processes that are causing more harm then good. If we can start examining these systems district wide, then schools can begin operating appropriately. I’ve rarely met someone at the district office, or schools sites who doesn’t want to see Oakland succeed. If we all believe in it, why are we continuing systems that are harmful?

Now what does OUSD think will occur if and when Norteno princesses enroll and black boys sexually hit on them? While you would think the boys would get a clue and know better, there is always going to be somebody that has to learn the hard way. It is the school’s responsibility to warn the boys? Is it the school’s responsibility to get them out of town when there’s a likely gang hit out on them? Does anybody still think the police are in the business of protecting blacks from Mexican Gangs?

What to do! What to do! I suppose we could show a DVD of “West Side Story” in class… Follow it up with “Romeo and Juliet”.

If OUSD has no protocol for these dust ups yet I think they may have something new coming down the pike as the gangs quickly consolidate their presence in Northern CA.

I once told a black family to get their teen out of the state at once after he avoided a rape case involving a Mexican girl (drunk girls make bad witnesses in court) at a party. I don’t believe any of them took the situation seriously. They didn’t seem to fathom that what happened with that girl is simply a killing affair as far as some people would be concerned. They don’t seem to know any black family that would kill without question and without hesitation should anyone lay a hand on one of it’s women (black families not being patriarchal). So they don’t see it coming just because Mexicans are involved.

Whites don’t go to these parties for the most part so Black Students don’t grok that situation either. My how things have changed since the early ’60s. And how they haven’t.

My guess is that the urban schools wash their hands of the entire issue and let the chips fall where they may. Think of it as Evolution in action. Most of the real student/non-student/student violence I’m hearing about with the gangs is now coming from the Jr Colleges which have significant parolee enrollments. The knives/guns/death threat incidents are gang & parolee driven.

Maybe my concern for the high schools is premature – it’s more of a Los Angeles thing so far.

The following comment was posted on October 13:

An important statement made by Peter von Ehrenkrook: “My concern is for those children who are rejected by the local charters and private schools. Either their parents don’t have the savvy to get them in, or once they fail there the charters and private schools send them back to us.”

Sadly, children with Special Needs very rarely set feet in those schools and even in many traditional public school campuses in our district.

There are many losers in this closure situation. Yet, let’s not forget that disability cuts across race, class, gender, etc.

Children with Special Needs are an indicator population. If you serve them well, you are probably serving all children well.

Sankofa is doing what very few schools in OUSD are doing: placing children with Special Needs at the center of school life and planning. While there are many reasons to support the work of this rare gem of a school, that one alone should cause everyone to pause and consider. The many of us who suffered through the closure of Tilden and the effects our often very vulnerable children, fought to find schools who would welcome all of the children from Tilden. We chose Sankofa as one of those schools because of its strikingly inclusive vision and practice, and Sankofa chose us. I do not have a child at Sankofa but fully support the rare work that the school is doing on behalf of children with Special Needs.

Few schools expressed their solidarity when Tilden became an easy first target in a wave of closures. We were the canary in the gold mine and the closure happened a year after a long re-incubation process. We are all still healing from those 2 long years of difficult organizing given the daily challenges of supporting our children and the fact that we come from many neighborhoods and experiences by no design of our own. We get placed in “programs” and we work like hell to build a school experience for our children.

Children with Special Needs do not often figure in all of the comments made by and about schools. Yet, the schools that support our population of children do so at a cost to their site budgets and their population numbers (e.g. Special Day classrooms have less children and impact the total population numbers.)

I will defend Sankofa because it took risks for our children when they most needed it.

That vision was not temporary and expedient. They continue in that sacred, joyful, and difficult work.

Thank you.

Special Education Parent Says:
October 13th, 2011 at 11:04 pm

An important statement made by Peter von Ehrenkrook: “My concern is for those children who are rejected by the local charters and private schools. Either their parents don’t have the savvy to get them in, or once they fail there the charters and private schools send them back to us.”

Sadly, children with Special Needs very rarely set feet in those schools and even in many traditional public school campuses in our district.

There are many losers in this closure situation. Yet, let’s not forget that disability cuts across race, class, gender, etc.

Children with Special Needs are an indicator population. If you serve them well, you are probably serving all children well.

Sankofa is doing what very few schools in OUSD are doing: placing children with Special Needs at the center of school life and planning. While there are many reasons to support the work of this rare gem of a school, that one alone should cause everyone to pause and consider. The many of us who suffered through the closure of Tilden and the effects our often very vulnerable children, fought to find schools who would welcome all of the children from Tilden. We chose Sankofa as one of those schools because of its strikingly inclusive vision and practice, and Sankofa chose us. I do not have a child at Sankofa but fully support the rare work that the school is doing on behalf of children with Special Needs.

Few schools expressed their solidarity when Tilden became an easy first target in a wave of closures. We were the canary in the gold mine and the closure happened a year after a long re-incubation process. We are all still healing from those 2 long years of difficult organizing given the daily challenges of supporting our children and the fact that we come from many neighborhoods and experiences by no design of our own. We get placed in “programs” and we work like hell to build a school experience for our children.

Children with Special Needs do not often figure in all of the comments made by and about schools. Yet, the schools that support our population of children do so at a cost to their site budgets and their population numbers (e.g. Special Day classrooms have less children and impact the total population numbers.)

I will defend Sankofa because it took risks for our children when they most needed it.

That vision was not temporary and expedient. They continue in that sacred, joyful, and difficult work.

Thank you.

I for one do not believe that gang member children or for that matter children of criminal gang members have any business in a normal school sitting with “normal” children. To me, certainly the children who are themselves tattooed or otherwise associated with criminal gangs should be disqualified from normal public schools as a danger to others and should be homeschooled or otherwise segregated away from decent people. The danger they present is both physical and moral. But then I wouldn’t allow promiscous children in a normal school either.

It’s not just that a rotten apple can spoil the bunch – it’s that decent society does not have to suffer the presence of such people. I don’t believe honest people should have to send their child to a school with such dangerous people. We have continuation and alternative education for such people.

I would also not be teaching “tolerance” for any of this. Decent people should not be associating with amoral/criminal types. Not good for your health. Lead poisoning is contagious – especially in Oakland.

And my final point is that poor but honest black kids should not have to be schooled with thugs. The whites are long gone. Ditto Jewish kids. Just because OUSD is a public school does not require that it be an “anything goes” school.

It’s this sort of tolerance that leads to the rise of the Charters and the demise of public education. Too bad. Public schooling seemed like a good thing for society at one time.

Another concept. Is the school in any way responsible for transporting the kiddies from their homes to and from the schoolhouse? Isn’t that the parent(s) job? If it is their job/burden – why is the district concerning itself? Next thing you know the district will be expected to provide the proper sheets to tuck the kiddies into bed with, and maybe the proper bedclothes too. And the right toothpaste, and the correct brushes also. It never ends. So why start it?

The more you provide anything for free to the masses the greater their inability to manage their own affairs. Our eagerness to “help” is the main reason these problems exist, not the depression or life in general.

I did receive a response from David Montes de Oca, via our new principal, and I responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Montes de Oca,

I appreciate your lengthy response to my concerns, sent to our current Principal Monica Guzman, regarding the process involved in the Grade Configuration Change process. She shared the e-mail with me this afternoon. I understand that you may not always be able to respond to non-administrator requests for information.

As you outlined, several schools were handpicked by the facilities department, a Regional Executive Officer, and Board leadership to take part in the pilot process, this being the first year. You also mentioned a Letter of Interest was generated and sent out to all Principals and Regional Officers to determine if any other school communities had begun serious consideration about pursuing grade configuration changes. The deadline for response was June 10, 2011, and it seems neither our former principal nor our OUSD Board President responded on behalf of Santa Fe Elementary. I regret that you were not personally made aware of any interest by members of the Santa Fe community until October 6, 2011.

While you state in your response that the inclusion of schools under consideration for Grade Configuration Change in Step 2 of the Restructuring Criteria was in no way intended to stave off a potential school closure, the outcome is clear. Sankofa, originally listed as the number 1 candidate for closure, was effectively removed from the list. You also state that you reflected on past new school design experiences, so I question how Sankofa’s recent failure as a K-8 was not a decisive factor.

In addition, you state that the Grade Configuration Change process is not designed as a school improvement strategy or as a method to increase school enrollment. Why should those not be included in the criteria? Are they not key qualities desired of all schools?

As you acknowledge, this process is a work in progress. I look forward to hearing how you have revised your criteria during your proposals to the Board of Education in November and December. I also look forward to engaging you in reconsidering Santa Fe in your next proposed cycle of decision-making in late January of 2012.

Another major concern, which your office has still not addressed, is the issue of safety for the children of Santa Fe who walk to school daily and often walk home after 6 PM if they take part in our After School Program. As you surely recall, a former Oakland Police Department captain, and current member of Assemblyman Swanson’s staff, testified before you, Superintendent Smith and Board President London at our Community Engagement Evening at Santa Fe on October 6, 2011. He stated quite clearly that asking our children to walk across town to Sankofa, Emerson, or Piedmont Avenue would put them at serious risk. A quick check of the AC Transit website will show you there are no direct bus lines to any of those schools from our area. This will require the 65% of our students who walk to school, well over 100 children ages 5 to 11, to travel through neighborhoods where their safety will be at serious risk.

No one wants to consider the impact on our community if one of our children were to be abducted or harmed in any way. I can also speak for the children in my 4th and 5th grade classes over the past few years, who have already engaged with or even identify themselves as members of local gangs. Asking them to walk through rival neighborhoods in the early morning and early evening hours is clearly disregarding their personal safety.

As you weigh all of the input you are receiving from the community and fellow administrators, please keep the safety of our children as your top priority.

Instead Councilmember Desley Brooks argued against making the kids do anything because it will criminalize youth. (What, staying out of school won’t do that?) & she argued that some school age kids have to stay home and look after their siblings [when their parent(s) are at work]. This is the kind of backwards ultra-liberalism that runs the City of Oakland.

At least it agrees with our return (intentional or not) to a 3rd world agrarian society. But I don’t think that’s a deliberate pairing…

Right now it feels like there are a lot of back room deals being made. And the school board wonders why there is declining enrollment in Oakland?

Fyi: This commented posted on the Oakland school blog by Peter Von Ehrenkrook, a teacher at Santa Fe. Check out what the district is spending
on Sankofa, a school with less than 200 students.

“This evening, October 18, 2011, I attended the Oakland Unified Facilities Meeting and received some answers to questions I have been asking over the
last few weeks.

It seems the Sankofa site is not restricted by a will solely for use as a public school. The neighboring Bushrod facility is restricted. In addition,
there has been $8,802,811.00 approved for renovations of the Sankofa site. While I do not doubt this may be necessary, that amount of money is the more
than four times what is being touted as the cost saved through the five proposed school closures.

I asked the Facilities Committee what criteria are used for allowing a school to go K-8, and I hope to receive a response. David Montes de Oca informed the staff of Santa Fe today through Principal Guzman that our application was never received. He also indicated that it would never have been approved. I asked the Facilities Committee to clarify how this judgement was made if an application was never received.

It is still a mystery to us how our former principal and Board President Jody London failed to follow through on this application after our April 12,
2011 School Site Council meeting, in which President London recommended we improve our student population by going K-8.

I made two other statements to the OUSD Facilities Committee. First, Santa Fe has a shut down but fully operable CDC facility, as well as a vacated
Adult School complex on the Santa Fe site which would provide ample space for expansion to a K-8 with no extra cost to the district. These spaces could and should be used to increase our incoming student population. By the way, the district has spent $16 million on building and renovating other CDCs, according to a report made at tonight’s meeting. Secondly, we are a QEIA school, whose yearly funding of $204,388.64 will not follow our staff
if we are transferred to new sites. In terms of fiscal responsibility, these should be major factors in the board’s decision regarding the closure of Santa Fe.”

The other reason this is a story is that these changes are being made in the 8th week of school and we were not notified of these changes until last week, which is a violation of our contract.

I have been teaching in Oakland since 1977 and went through many consolidations and many lay-offs, but I have never seen a school as negatively impacted as Bella Vista is this year.

It might be worse in Oakland because of its unstable enrollment and beginning-of-the-year attendance patterns. Since families tend to trickle in during the first 20 days of school, districtwide, it’s hard to make a decision on the first week of classes that might have to be reversed later.

The other interesting issue, which I didn’t have space to get into in the story, is that some schools in the red were spared consolidations, based on recommendations made by network executive officers. Parents at Munck were told at a meeting I attended that their school was stable enough to withstand the shake-up, while other schools were not.

But there is only so much money in the district’s “balancing pool” — which, as I understand it, provides subsidies for schools with low enrollment and/or high teacher costs — and it apparently ran dry.