Activism

School Board Candidate is Mayor’s Staffer with Privatizer Connections

Mungia’s work on behalf of Mayor Schaaf’s education agenda is part of what troubles school advocates. Schaaf, a longtime supporter of charter schools, has spoken forcefully in the media in favor of closing as many as half of the city’s public schools.

Published

3 years ago

June 27, 2022

Oakland Post

Kyra Mungia

By Ken Epstein

The candidacy of Kyra Mungia, one of nine applicants who wish to fill the vacant District 6 seat on the Oakland Board of Education, has raised concerns from public school advocates about her connections to pro-charter school organizations and school privatizers.

The school board was faced with filling this vacancy when Board member Shanthi Gonzales recently resigned. The six remaining school board members are scheduled to vote before the end of June to fill the seat until January, when a new board member, elected in November, will take office.

According to Mungia’s resume, she has worked in Mayor Libby Schaaf’s Office from June 2016 to the present, currently serving as the mayor’s Deputy Director of Education.

However, a search of payroll records from 2016-2021 on Transparent California does not show Mungia as a payee by the City of Oakland for her job in the Mayor’s Office.

In a reply to questions from the Oakland Post, the Mayor’s spokesperson replied that Ms. Mungia’s salary is paid by a non-profit organization.

“Her employee position (and salary) is funded by The Oakland Public Education Fund. Ms. Mungia, like all Office of the Mayor staff — regardless of their salary’s funding source — [is] required to fill out public disclosure documents, including Form 700, and abide by all rules and regulations required of a city employee,” said the mayor’s spokesperson Justin Berton.

Form 700 lists Mungia as a Lee Public Policy Fellow. Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) is tied to a charter school advocacy group.

Mungia has a considerable history with organizations that have a reputation for support for charter schools and from privatizers, including several that paid for a series of fellowships in the Mayor’s Office.

She began her career in Oakland as an elementary teacher for three years in East Oakland, working at least part of the time for Teach for America, which is tied to privatizers. Also, while working as a teacher, she served as a GO Public Schools Fellow.

GO is a charter-friendly organization that has spent $1,112,526 in Oakland school board elections since 2012, predominantly funded by out-of-town billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, Arthur Rock and Stacy Schusterman.

She was paid by the Oakland Public Education Fund (Ed Fund) in 2019-2020 for her work on Oakland Promise, the Mayor’s nonprofit, according to the Ed Fund’s IRS filings.

According to Ms. Mungia’s public LinkedIn resume, her career in the Mayor’s Office started in June 2016 with a three-month fellowship paid by Urban Leaders, an organization with a list of partners that includes KIPP (charter school chain), Educate78 (a charter expansion organization), GO Public Schools, and other pro-charter groups.

She continued in the mayor’s office with another fellowship through June 2017 paid by Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE), an organization whose political arm gave $25,000 to the Power2Families PAC in 2000, which then bankrolled the candidacies of Austin Dannhaus for the OUSD District 1 seat, and Maiya Edgerly for the OUSD District 3 seat. Both candidates lost their races — despite record spending by Power2Families and other school privatizer organizations — to Sam Davis and VanCedric Williams.

In 2019, Mungia was a Surge Fellow in the Mayor’s office, a Black and Brown leadership development program, funded by wealthy backers of charter expansion, including the Walton Family Foundation and Michael Bloomberg.

Rochelle Jenkins, A District-6 parent, said she wanted the school board to pick a district representative who would speak for parents’ and families’ interests. “I hope the school board will choose a candidate who will represent our students and families first, and not Mayor Schaff and out-of-town billionaires.”

“In 2020, monied charter school interests tried to defeat a parent running in District 1 by spending big against him, but voters rejected that. It is incumbent on the school board to select a parent who will genuinely represent D6 families, and who won’t be given a leg-up because they intend to run in November,” said OUSD parent Rachel Latta.

In addition to seeking the temporary appointed position, Mungia is running for a four-year term in November as the District 6 representative.

Along with Mungia, the following eight candidates have applied for the vacant appointed position. They are:

Azlinah Tambu is a mother of two OUSD students at Parker Elementary. Since the announcement of intended school closures, she has been a leader in the fight to keep Parker open. She has lived in District 6 for eight years and in Oakland for 14 years.

David (Joel) Velasquez is an Oakland parent, an engineer and a business owner and has been involved with the district for 20 years. He has lived in District 6 for eight years.

David Correa, a former middle school teacher in OUSD for 10 years, currently manages the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco. He has two children in elementary school and has lived in Oakland for 12 years.

Janell Hampton has lived in Oakland for almost 40 years, including 10 years in District 6. She works for the California School Employees Association (CSEA), which represents food service workers, custodians, groundskeepers, para educators, bus drivers and security officers. She is a graduate of Skyline High School.

Julie Mendoza worked as an English teacher at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland. She has lived nine years in Oakland, including four in District 6.

Kim Davis, a district 6 parent and long-time education advocate in Oakland, is a leader and founder of Parents United for Public Schools. She has lived in District 6 for 19 years.

Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer is professor and chair of the Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies department at Mills College She taught in OUSD schools from 1997 to 2005. She has lived in District 6 for 3 years and in Oakland for 27 years.

Tamecca Brewer (Anderson) was a math teacher in OUSD from 1995 to 1999. She now serves as an assistant manager for the Alameda County Library system.

She has been a District 6 resident for 22 years. As a student, she attended OUSD schools.

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Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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Activism

California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”