Community
New School Board Will Grapple with Pandemic, OUSD’s Legacy of Distrust
Members of the school community are looking expectantly to January, when four new school board trustees take their seats, for signs that there will be new directions in Oakland public schools’ leadership.
The new board members – Dr. Clifford Thompson, Mike Hutchinson, VanCedric Williams and Sam Davis – will be called on to work with the other three members of the seven-member board to develop solutions in a district that faces deep divisions over school closings and austerity-driven budget cuts. At the same time, they must also find a path to reopen the city’s classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic that currently requires the district to rely on Internet-based education.
The last few years were marked by intense conflict in Oakland schools. A bitter teachers’ strike filled the streets of Oakland daily with thousands of teachers and their supporters and was widely supported in the community. In the wake of the strike, the school board and the administration stuck by an unpopular decision to close two schools, Roots Academy and Kaiser Elementary. Distrust and anger at the board and administration grew red hot during the prolonged and desperate protests of the schools’ parents and supporters and may have been instrumental in the decisions of the four incumbent board members not to run for re-election this past November.
The Oakland Post spoke this week to the four new board members about their immediate plans and priorities for when they take office in January. Below are interviews with Dr. Thompson and Hutchinson. Next week, the Post will publish the interviews with Williams and Davis.
Dr. Thompson, who will represent District 7, works currently as a fifth-grade teacher in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. He has worked extensively in Oakland schools and has decades of experience as a teacher, principal, administrator and university professor.
He says his immediate goal is to help the schools recover from the pandemic.
“My top priority is getting the kids back to school, but I want to do it in a safe manner,” he said, emphasizing that he will rely on recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
His education goals are to implement school board policies that promote neighborhood schools throughout the city and “disrupt the racism that exists” to create educational opportunity for all students.
Supporting neighborhood schools and increased equity will bring students back to the public schools, he said.
“I remember when Oakland public schools had 54,000 students. Now they have 36,000,” Thompson said. “I’m interested in getting those numbers up. We can do it if we concentrate on a high-quality program like we used to have. Kids will be clamoring to get in.”
Thompson was the only candidate elected to the board in November who was backed by GO Public Schools, a local pro-charter school organization with a lot of influence in the school district. He has worked as an administrator at both charters and public schools.
He says the public battle over the two types of schools misses the point. He does not see himself as someone who supports charters or traditional public schools but as a backer of schools “offering a quality education.”
“I am not a charter school advocate. I’m a solid program advocate,” he said. “I believe we should focus on whether what we are doing benefits students,” he said in an online interview. “Our goal, as educators, is to find what works and use it for our students and their learning.”
Mike Hutchinson, who will represent District 5, is a long-time school advocate who was born in Oakland and attended public schools in the city. He worked in the schools for 20 years until 2012 when the district closed the school where he was working.
He says he will work with the administration to create a post-pandemic reopening that has broad community, family and teacher support.
“Right now, there is not enough trust to create a reopening plan,” he said. “We need to create a process for people to buy in and engage in the plan.”
The district’s current plan is not bad, he said, “but lacks community involvement.” “That’s why there is so much lack of trust. There will be no reopening without a school board vote,” he said.
He says he also wants to strengthen the school board. “One of the changes I’m going to be pushing for is for the school board to assume its full authority,” he said.
He said he has had positive meetings with Supt. Kyla Johnson-Trammell and her staff. “I’m encouraged in meeting with the superintendent that she seemed very receptive to the board playing its (proper) role. It seems like she is ready to make some of these changes.”
The relationship between the board and the administration “has been out of balance since the state took over in 2003,” Hutchinson said. Administrators ran the district, and board members turn their authority over to the superintendent and staff. “(But) it is the board’s job to create policy and create betters schools,” he said.
The first policy change on his list is to modify the district’s Blueprint for Quality Schools to stop school closings.
“This is the policy of school closures and destabilization. I’m going to be eliminating school closures,” Hutchinson said.
Activism
An Inside Look into How San Francisco Analyzes Homeless Encampments
Dozens of unhoused people are camped at Sixth and Jesse streets in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. Tents made of tarps and blankets, piles of debris, and people lounging alongside the allies and walls of businesses are seen from all angles. These are some of the city’s hotspots. City crews have cleared encampments there over 30 times in the past year, but unhoused people always return.
By Magaly Muñoz
Dozens of unhoused people are camped at Sixth and Jesse streets in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. Tents made of tarps and blankets, piles of debris, and people lounging alongside the allies and walls of businesses are seen from all angles.
These are some of the city’s hotspots. City crews have cleared encampments there over 30 times in the past year, but unhoused people always return.
But it’s normal to have tents set up again within less than 24 hours after an encampment sweep, David Nakanishi, Healthy Streets Operation Center Manager at the Department of Emergency Management, says. Sometimes there’s less people than before but often there is also no change.
“Most of the people that were in the encampments that want to go inside, we’ve gotten the majority of those [into shelter],” Nakanishi says. “Many of the people we encounter now, are those who have various reasons to not accept shelter, and some are already in shelter/housing”.
Since the ruling of Grants Pass by the US Supreme Court earlier this summer, which allows cities the authority to ban people from camping or sleeping on the streets, San Francisco has been at the head of the conversation to crack down on encampments.
Where neighboring cities in the Bay Area are clearing encampments a few days a week, San Francisco is sweeping 10 times a week, two per weekday.
Considering the controversy that plagues the city around its harsh policies, the Post decided to tag along on a ride with Nakanishi to show us how he decides what encampments make it on the city’s sweep list.
Nakanishi, having over 20 years of experience in homelessness management, drives around the busiest parts of the city almost daily. He’s tasked with arranging a weekly sweeping operation schedule for city teams to engage with unhoused folks to help get them off the streets.
So what exactly is he looking out for when deciding what encampments get swept?
It depends, he says.
Locations like schools, recreational centers, senior centers, or businesses are places he tends to want to address quickly, especially schools. These are the places where the complaints are highest and access to facilities is important for residents.
He says he also takes into account 311 calls and reports made to him by city staff. On the date of publication, over 100 calls and reports were made about encampments around the city, according to San Francisco data.
Nakanishi made a few 311 reports himself on the ride along, pulling over to take photos and describe the encampments into his 311 app. He says it helps him remember where to possibly sweep next or allows smaller teams in the city to engage quicker with individuals on the streets.
Nakanishi also looks at the state of the encampments. Are there a lot of bulky items, such as furniture, or makeshift structures built out of tarps and plywood, blocking areas of traffic? Is trash beginning to pile up and spill into the streets or sidewalks? Sites that meet this criteria tend to be contenders for encampment sweeps, Nakanishi says.
Street by street, he points out individuals he’s interacted with, describing their conditions, habits, and reasons for denying assistance from the city.
One man on 2nd St and Mission, who rolls around a blue recycling bin and often yells at passing pedestrians, has refused shelter several times, Nakanishi says.
People deny shelter for all kinds of reasons, he says. There’s too many rules to follow, people feel unsafe in congregate or shared shelters, or their behavioral and mental health problems make it hard to get them into proper services.
Nakanishi references another man on South Van Ness under the freeway, who city outreach have attempted to get into shelter, but his screaming outbursts make it difficult to place him without disturbing other people in the same space. Nakanishi says it might be an issue of the man needing resources like medication to alleviate his distress that causes the screaming, but the city behavioral team is in the process of outreaching him to figure that out.
In October, city outreach teams engaged with 495 unhoused people. 377 of those engaged refused shelter and only 118 accepted placements, according to city data. That number of monthly referrals is consistent throughout the entirety of 2024 so far.
Nakanishi has long advocated for the well-being of unhoused people, he explains. In 2004, he was working with the Department of Public Health and told then-Mayor Gavin Newsom that there needed to be more housing for families. Nakinishi was told it was easier to deal with individuals first and the city “will get there eventually.” 20 years later, family housing is still not as extensive as it could be, and the waiting list to get placements for families is a mile long with over 500 names.
In 2020, he was a Senior Behavioral Health Clinician at a hotel in the city during the pandemic. He says in 2021 he collaborated with DPH to provide vaccines to those staying in the makeshift hotel shelters once those became available.
Despite the constant media attention that city outreach is inhumanely treating homeless people, so much so that it has led to lawsuits against San Francisco from advocates, Nakanishi says not a lot of people are seeing the true conditions of some encampments.
He describes soiled clothing and tents, drenched in urine, and oftentimes rodents or bug infestations in places where people are sleeping. He’s asked homeless advocates- often those who are the most critical about the city’s work- who have shown up to observe the sweeps if those are conditions the city should allow people to be subjected to, but not many have answers for him, Nakanishi says.
The city’s “bag and tag” policy allows city workers to throw away items that are “soiled by infectious materials” such as bodily fluids and waste.
Sweep operations are conducted at 8am and 1pm Monday through Friday. People at the encampments are given 72 hour notice to vacate, but some don’t leave the area until the day of the sweep.
City outreach workers come out the day before and day of to offer resources and shelter to those interested. The Department of Public Works discards any trash that is left over from the sweep and washes down the area.
Nakanishi told the Post that the only time the city takes tents or personal possessions from residents is when folks become physically violent towards workers and police take the items as evidence. Other items taken are bagged and tagged in accordance with city policy.
Stories from local newspapers such as the San Francisco Standard and the Chronicle show instances of SFPD handcuffing residents while their items are thrown in the trash or disposing of personal possessions without reason.
Advocates have long been pushing for a more competent and compassionate process if the city is going to choose to continue sweeping unhouse people.
No matter the lawsuits and constant criticisms from allies, the encampment sweeps are not slowing down, even with the cold weather quickly approaching the coastal city.
Nakanishi says there aren’t a lot of large encampments left in San Francisco so now they do runs of streets in order to stretch out the sweeps as much as possible.
It’s calculated strategies and years of first hand knowledge that make this job work, “It takes dedication to the work, caring for the people and the community, and persistence, patience and sometimes good luck to make the positive changes for the people on the street,” Nakanishi says.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of November 13 – 19, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 13 – 19, 2024
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
LIVE! — TOWN HALL ON RACISM AND ITS IMPACT — THURS. 11.14.24 5PM PST
Join us for a LIVE Virtual Town Hall on the Impact of Racism hosted by Post News Group Journalist Carla Thomas and featuring Oakland, CA NAACP President Cynthia Adams & other Special Guests.
Thursday, November 14, 2024, 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. PST
Join us for a LIVE Virtual Town Hall on the Impact of Racism hosted by Post News Group Journalist Carla Thomas and featuring Oakland, CA NAACP President Cynthia Adams & other Special Guests.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. PST
Discussion Topics:
• Since the pandemic, what battles have the NAACP fought nationally, and how have they impacted us locally?
• What trends are you seeing concerning Racism? Is it more covert or overt?
• What are the top 5 issues resulting from racism in our communities?
• How do racial and other types of discrimination impact local communities?
• What are the most effective ways our community can combat racism and hate?
Your questions and comments will be shared LIVE with the moderators and viewers during the broadcast.
STREAMED LIVE!
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YOUTUBE: youtube.com/blackpressusatv
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