It may not be the ’60s anymore, but we students are still out there protesting.

On Wednesday, ten students from Skyline High School who are members of the Global Awareness In Action Club (www.globalawarenessinaction.com) attended the protest of the Olympic Torch in San Francisco. These students, including myself, had all been learning about the situation in Tibet recently, and felt compelled to attend the protest on behalf of Tibetans all around the world. Teachers and parents were incredibly supportive of this.

I am aware that this story has been very controversial in the news lately. I would like to make it clear that we students felt very strongly about the Human Rights Violations going on in Tibet, but we are not in any way against the Olympics, the Olympians, or the Chinese people. They have our support.

It would be very difficult to explain the experience I had at this protest to anyone who wasn’t there. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that to be condescending, all I mean is that it was overwhelming, incredible, fantastic, a bit nerve-racking, and a great learning experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Marco Franco, the well-regarded principal of East Oakland’s Sobrante Park Elementary School, told his staff today that he will keep his job, and that he will be back in the fall.

In February, Franco learned that he might be assigned to another school or fired over a February confrontation with two reportedly aggressive parents. His teachers formed an ad hoc committee in his support and wrote letters to district staff urging them to reconsider. (Read the blog post.)

According to Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I went to Sobrante Park Elementary School to see how its teachers — including one of the district’s teachers of the year — do literacy. Oakland’s chief academic officer arranged the visit, and I wasn’t surprised that he chose that particular school.

Sobrante Park, in East Oakland, is one of the few Oakland schools that has dug its way out of NCLB’s Program Improvement watch list. Its success at raising the test scores of its mostly low-income, Latino and African-American students was documented in a case study by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform. The Christian Science Monitor wrote about it last year.

But I hear the school might lose its popular principal, Marco Franco, over a Feb. 19 confrontation with two parents who are said to have shoved him and threatened to harm him.

According to a letter signed by Franco’s supporters, police investigated the incident and “recommended that the family be moved to another school, which Mr. Franco and the staff supported as a sensible step to avoid future violence from the family.”

Instead, Franco learned that he might be fired, demoted or transferred to another school, said David Draheim, an attorney and the husband of Sobrante Park teacher Roberta Draheim. The Draheims and others formed an Ad Hoc Committee in Support of Marco Franco and Sobrante Park Elementary School and have written several letters, which they’ve sent to school and city officials. Read the rest of this entry »

Update: The benefit concert is from 2-7 p.m. Sunday (Feb. 10) at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. More information can be found here.

Christopher Rodriguez is in good spirits, is recovering more quickly than expected and has left the intensive care unit of Children’s Hospital-Oakland. The 10-year-old now spends part of his day in a wheelchair and, according to his mom, is trying to do “wheelies.”

“He has not cried. He’s taken everything as a champ,” his dad said.

Christopher, who was critically injured and paralyzed by a stray bullet that sailed through the wall of his music school Jan. 10, knows he won’t be able to walk for years, at least, his father said. Read the rest of this entry »

School board president David Kakishiba didn’t use his position on the board to force school staff at Think College Now, ASCEND and International Community School to distribute advocacy flyers to kids, and he did not commit an ethics violation, according to an independent inquiry (lawyers hired by the district).

Read the report here.

Phyllis Harris, who has overseen Oakland’s special education programs since July 2003, leaves her job next week — a fact that many have speculated about or known for over a month. She’s moving East to be the deputy chancellor for special education in D.C. Public Schools.

Curiously, 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 department of education.

Harris says she has trained Lisa Ryan Cole, a 25-year district employee and an “outstanding (special education) coordinator,” to replace her, at least on an interim basis. Ryan Cole was a teacher and, most recently, the middle schools coordinator for the department. Read the rest of this entry »

Barak Ben-Gal, who quit OUSD about six months ago to take a job at Yahoo!, finally has a successor. His name is Jason Willis.

Willis came to Oakland’s central office earlier this year as a project manager for the Expect Success! initiative. Like Vincent Matthews, the interim state administrator, he received a major promotion after just a few months on Second Avenue.

He was actually promoted about three weeks ago, but I just heard about it through the grapevine yesterday. Here’s an e-mail the district spokesman sent out after I asked for Willis’ resume and got a bio instead. (I don’t know who the “all” is, in case you’re wondering.)

Hello All,

I would like to formally introduce Jason Willis as the new Budget Director for the Oakland Unified School District. Many of you know Jason through the work he performed in his previous position as an Expect Success project manager focused on developing the District’s investment framework and service economy.

Prior to joining OUSD in 2007 Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I was allowed to sit in on the auditions — I mean, interviews — for new principal at Joaquin Miller Elementary School and at Montera Middle School.

I wrote one story about the new process being used by the Oakland school district to choose school leaders, and another about the challenges and the potential at Montera. (One candidate, pictured here, goes through a role play during the interview.)

This week, the state administrator approved the committee’s selections of Russom Mesfun for principal at Montera, and Ifeoma Obodozie for Joaquin Miller. It’s not official yet — apparently there are still the fingerprints, TB testing and other loose ends to deal with – but it’s close. 

Now, Oakland High School is trying to fill its leadership void. Read the rest of this entry »

After hearing about the retirements of the Fruitvale, Joaquin Miller and Montera principals, I asked the district for a list of all of the existing schools that will have new principals in the fall. It just came in.

Here is the list of 12 14 schools, with the old principals (as of the beginning of 2006-07) and the new ones:

SCHOOL                             FORMER PRINCIPAL      NEW PRINCIPAL

Elementary

Fruitvale                                Cherie Ivey                    Terry Edwards

International Community   Guillermina Gutierrez          L. Karen Monroe

Joaquin Miller                        Linda Lu                       TBD

La Escuelita                            Kristal Chin                  Tammy Rose

Maxwell Park                         Ruben Aurelio              Mary Louise-Newling

PLACE                                     Jan Hamilton                Enomowyi Booker

Rise                                          Sara Stone                     Carrie Betti

Middle

Cole                                         Toby Hopstone              Ivory Brooks

Explore                                  Asali Waters                   Michael Scott

Madison                                 Quiauna Whitfield          Lucinda Taylor

Montera                                Cheryl Rodby                   TBD

Peralta Creek                      David Kumamoto                 Gregory McNamara     

High

Far West                              Linda McCluskey                  Beverly Jarrett

Oakland High                      Clement Mok                         TBD                    

Then there are the new principals at the district’s new schools:

Community United Elementary School (Lockwood site) — Pati Ceja

Learning Without Limits (Jefferson site) — Leo Fuchs

International High School — Carmelita Reyes

Alternative Learning Community (Toler Heights site) — Dennis Guikema

West Oakland Middle School (Cole site) — Seyana Mawusi

 8/2/07 update: The Oakland police say they interviewed the people who made the allegations to the school district, and that Dobbins won’t face charges — for real, this time. The district is still conducting its own inquiry.

Last month, the authorities released the following statement, before they retracted it hours later:

On 23 Jul 07, the Special Victims Unit received a mandatory cross report from the Oakland Unified School District of possible sexual improprieties on the part of a School Board Director and a 17 year old female student. The student was contacted in person by investigators and made no disclosure of any crime; she denied the reported allegations. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has been consulted, and they are not pursuing criminal charges due to no evidence of corpus.

The question now is what the district will do, especially since some were calling for Dobbins’ resignation. I’ll be posting updates.