You can find the meetings listed here, though not always that far in advance. I don’t know if the 2012 regular meetings schedule is posted yet.

There are quite a few parent groups in Oakland: Oakland Parents Together, Parent Leadership Action Network and Oakland Community Organizations come to mind. I’ve actually been meaning to blog about this.

And, of course, keep reading this blog!

As someone who’s just starting to dive into all the school information, I feel a bit lost. How can a parent educate herself about the board, the issues, the budget crisis, etc? Are board meetings open to the public? Are they posted on the OUSD website? How can a parent get involved beyond the raise-money-for-your-child’s-elementary-school level? Aside from this recall initiative, are there advocacy groups? It seems like there’s a lot rotten about the system but there’s so much to parse out here — what is the state’s fault, what is the OUSD’s fault, what can be done, etc. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Cheers.

Consider: Many of these school board members ran UNOPPOSED, even in their very first election. Almost nobody wants the job, because it doesn’t pay and it is a lot of work and you are invariably going to deal with some very angry people.

Here’s an idea: People who care this much about OUSD should draft and run candidates during regularly scheduled elections!

I sat through 2 hours of public dialogue between Jody London and community members at the Rockridge Public Library, and I was very impressed with her ability to connect with her audience of white, upper middle class constituents. She went out of her way to compliment the growth of Peralta, and also mentioned several times how “our European-American schools are outperforming our African-American schools.”

Despite an earthquake, which seemed to momentarily rattle Ms. London, she continued to respond quite openly with her audience. She insisted that Claremont would not be closing, and she plans to send her daughter there next year.

A persistent question in my mind has been why there would be a need for Sankofa to go K-8 if Claremont is underenrolled. Some of the African-American community members at Santa Fe believe it will help Claremont regain some of the European-American population who fled when middle schools in West Oakland were closed and African-Americans were reassigned to Claremont. With Sankofa open for middle school students, those African-American students from West Oakland need no longer attend Claremont.

What has not been articulated, and what Ms. London seems woefully unaware of or unconcerned about, is her cultural disconnect from her African-American constituents.

I don’t believe anyone faults a parent for wanting to attend and support her child’s extracurricular activities. Many Santa Fe community members questioned why Ms. London would use that as an excuse to not respond to their questions at the Santa Fe community meeting. They felt she surely could have made arrangements for another family member to help out, so she could fulfill her duty as an OUSD Board Member.

One Santa Fe parent who sat with me through the Rockridge Library forum was also deeply offended by the tone and rhetoric Ms. London used there. He became a leader in the recall drive in District 1.

I personally was astonished when I received Ms. London’s response to a request that she attend a Santa Fe School Site Council meetings. She e-mailed back that I must surely be aware that she has a day job and she is not available to attend on such short notice (I believe it was 72 hours). To his credit, Mr. Noel Gallo did attend, though he is not our direct representative on the board. That spoke volumes to me about Ms. London’s commitment to representing ALL of her constituents. As mentioned above, she has made no effort to communicate with or engage in dialogue with the Santa Fe community since April of 2011.

If nothing else, perhaps this recall effort will serve as a wake up call to those board members who believe they have acted in the best interests of ALL of their constituents.

The four comprehensive plans, with maps, are available for all to see. There is lively debate, anxiety, skepticism, and politics involved, of course. It does not seem to be a scattershot approach targeting one school after another unlike Oakland’s practice.