Oakland

‘No Excuses’ Only Works When It Applies to the Adults in the School, Too

Published

7 years ago

March 1, 2018

Oakland Post

By Dirk Tillotson

Many schools with strict discipline practice what they call a “no excuses” philosophy.

The problem with many “no excuses” schools is that the motto is often imposed on children but not adults. The adults make all kinds of excuses about the kids who don’t want to learn, whose parents won’t support the school, or whatever justification they have for pushing out kids who don’t fit the mold.

OK, I’m over-generalizing about the schools, but stick with me.

As a Black parent, I know many Black families appreciate the strict discipline and structure, and many students do, too. You can see some of these positive reactions in this video of Black parents, teachers and students really addressing the issue.

Sometimes “no excuses” is a powerful two-way promise, rather than a means to shovel blame on children and families. But sometimes it is not.

IT’S A SCARY WORLD OUT THERE

As Black parents, we know that our children grow up in a very dangerous world, where small missteps can have immense consequences. Our kids often have to be better just to have an equal shot.

Black parents also more often enforce strict discipline at home. A survey a few years ago showed that Black parents were far more likely to spank their kids than Latino and White families.

And if you work in schools, you have probably seen this, parents that struck their children in school after some disciplinary issue (“sorry I gots to hotline you.”), or that threatened to beat their child once they got home (“thanks but we don’t really need your help that way.”), or even those that we might not tell about certain infractions or issues at school because we knew they would beat the child (“let’s handle this issue in house”).

Black folks are used to a harshness in society and we can be harsh within families as a protective measure. I think parents know how high the stakes are and really need their children to succeed and not transgress in the outside world. A spanking or even a switch is nothing compared to that societal lash. Strict discipline is seen as helping.

We also rely on schools more than most, so when it comes to the school model, we are risk-averse. We often don’t want some experimental approach, we want the “real schools” that many of us grew up in. And in a lot of cases those schools were very strict.

BAREFOOT BECKY

Years ago I worked with a school in a predominantly Black neighborhood that was implementing a non-traditional, very loose program, roughly based on the ideas of Reggio Emilia (note, I am not saying this a good example of it).

Very loose school structures, kids kind of milling around doing their own thing and Becky the teacher sitting barefoot on the floor, looking like she was ready for a Grateful Dead show.

Yeah, the families were not feeling that, maybe this weird way of learning will work, but we can’t take the chance. (And, yeah that school closed.)

In my experience, Black families tend to accept and want more structured and stricter environments for our kids. At times I’ve seen parents give schools the permission to corporally punish their child (uh, no thanks). So it’s not surprising to me to hear many parents praise the strict structure and support they got from “no excuses” schools.

A BAD JOKE AND SAD RESULT

Here’s a sad joke: What do you call a kid with a social anxiety disorder in a school where cold calling (not waiting for students to raise their hands to answer but just calling on kids) is an expected part of teaching?

A dropout.

Not funny.

To me the rigidity of the rules in some of these schools too often does not account for the differences between students.

I still remember a student who was one of my early exercises in stupidity as an educator. He just would not stay seated, always bobbing around the classroom, kind of bouncing on his toes. Hawkeyed, I had him constantly under surveillance, just waiting for him to get up so I could get him to sit down. He wasn’t disagreeable, but it was a constant tug of war. He didn’t even bother the other kids, they seemed used to it. It just bothered me.

Then I met his mom, I made some kind of judgmental comment about how “active” he was, and she said, “Yeah, he has been like that since the head injury.”

And I realized what a jerk I had been, for no good reason, just because the rules were to stay seated, “no excuses.” Stupid. A head injury is a damn good “excuse.” Turns out, there are a lot of good excuses out there.

TOWARDS A BETTER ‘NO EXCUSES’

I admit, my “no excuses” rant is a bit of a straw man. In the best of circumstances, the “no excuses” motto is a reciprocal promise: As a school there is no excuse for us not to figure out how to serve you, and as a student—once we remove these barriers and genuinely understand and support you—there is no excuse for you not to give your best.

And I know there are schools that do it this way. Highly structured, yet not in a rigid and unresponsive way.

I also know that many students with chaotic lives outside of school crave and thrive and feel safe in a predictable school structure, and may really need that. So these things are not incompatible and can actually succeed in combination, but it takes work.

More than that, it takes love.

When we are coming from a place of love with our students, of genuine empathy and caring, we don’t allow excuses—from ourselves or from them.

And that’s a kind of “no excuses” that I and a lot of other Black families would like to see more of.

Dirk Tillotson runs a nonprofit called Great Schools Choices, which supports community-based charter school development and increasing access for underserved families. He has worked for over 20 years supporting community charters in Oakland, New Orleans and New York City, and he blogs at Great School Voices.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

9 hours ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.

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Alameda County

Oakland Begins Month-Long Closure on Largest Homeless Encampment

At 8 a.m. sharp, city workers began piling up trash and dismantling makeshift homes along the nearly five-block encampment. City crews blocked off streets from 14th Ave to 17th Ave, between E. 12th and International Blvd, due to the Safe Work Zone Ordinance that was passed by the city council in 2022 to protect workers from harassment during cleanings, according to a city spokesperson.

Published

10 hours ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

The City of Oakland began sweeping their largest homeless encampment on E 12th St. Monday morning. Advocates claim that the city has not done its due diligence with providing ample resources or outreach for residents at the encampment. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland began a three-week-long breakdown of the largest homeless encampment in the city on E. 12th Street on Monday morning. Residents and advocates said they are devastated about the displacement of dozens of people.

Jaz Colibri, one of the many advocates at the closure, said the encampment sweeps were “intense and terrifying” to witness. They claimed that several residents, many of them non-English speakers, had not been aware that the sweep was happening that day because of a lack of proper communication and outreach from Oakland.

Colibri added that the city had done a Census “many months ago” and “had not bothered to count people since then”, meaning dozens of individuals have missed out on housing and resources in the last few weeks because the city doesn’t offer outreach in multiple languages.

“Basically, [Oakland] dropped the ball on actually getting to know everybody who lives here and then creating a housing solution that meets everyone’s needs,” Colibri said.

City spokesperson Jean Walsh told the Post that notices of the closure operation were posted in Spanish and Chinese prior to Monday, but did not clarify if outreach was done in those languages as well.

Nearly a dozen Oakland police vehicles, California Highway Patrol officers, and Oakland Public Works staff were gathered along E 12th waiting for residents to pack up their belongings and move away from the area.

Advocates said residents “felt unsafe” due to the hefty law enforcement presence.

One city worker, who was picking up debris near 16th Ave, said, “They’ve known we were coming for a long time now” in reference to resident confusion about the sweeping.

The state doubled down on its requirement to get cities and counties to deal with their homelessness crisis at a press conference Monday afternoon. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office released a “model ordinance” that is intended to provide a starting point that local municipalities can use to build from and adjust in creating their own policies on encampments, if they haven’t done so yet.

Newsom said “No more excuses, time to deliver” after the state has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into solving the issue.

Oakland was awarded a $7.2 million grant from the state in 2024 to close long-standing encampments in the city, including camps at Martin Luther King, Jr. and 23rd Street, and Mosswood Park.

Residents at these encampments were offered wraparound supportive services, temporary shelter, and eventually will be transitioned to permanent supportive housing, according to a city statement from last year.

Residents who accepted housing at these three encampments were moved into newly acquired property, formerly the Extended Stay America Hotel in West Oakland, which will first serve as interim housing for up to 150 individuals and couples in 105 units, and in the coming year, will be converted into 125 units of permanent housing.

Walsh said as of May 2, “32 residents of the recently closed Mosswood Park encampment moved into the Mandela House program” and as of May 12, “41 residents of the East 12th Street encampment have already accepted offers to move to the Mandela House.” The city will provide final numbers of how many accepted and moved into housing after the closure operation is over.

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Barbara Lee

WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries Kick Off Season with Community Programs in Oakland

“The Golden State Valkyries are more than a team—they’re a movement,” said Oakland Interim-Mayor Kevin Jenkins. “Their touchdown in Oakland marks a new era of opportunity, inspiration, and equity in sports. This partnership reflects our city’s deep commitment to uplifting women, investing in youth, and building a community where every dream has a place to grow. We’re proud to welcome the Valkyries to The Town.”

Published

11 hours ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

The Valkyries came to Oakland City Hall with a “Hoopbus.” Present were (from left to right): City Councilmembers Noel Gallo, Rebecca Kaplan, Zac Unger and Rowena Brown; Oakland Mayor-elect Barbara Lee, Valkyries President Jess Smith, a Valkyries team representative and Deputy Mayor LaNiece Jones. Photo courtesy Rebecca Kaplan’s office.

Team installs new nets at playgrounds, holds flag-raisings at City Halls in Oakland and S.F.

Special to The Post

The Golden State Valkyries brought the excitement of their inaugural season to every corner of the Bay Area with a full slate of community celebrations leading up to their historic home-opener against the Los Angeles Sparks at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Friday.

The week featured flag-raising ceremonies at city halls in Oakland and San Francisco, three “Violet Net” installation days at Oakland parks to encourage basketball play, fun “Hoopbus” takeovers at multiple schools presented by Kaiser Permanente, and player appearances.

In total, 90 violet nets were installed on 45 basketball courts across 34 public parks throughout Oakland this week. A list of the parks receiving violet nets can be found at Valkyries.com.

About the Golden State Valkyries

The Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA affiliate of the seven-time NBA Champion Golden State Warriors, were announced as the 13th WNBA franchise on Oct. 5, 2023. According to Norse mythology, Valkyries are a host of warrior women who are fearless and unwavering – flying through air and sea alike.

This brand is Golden State’s modern interpretation of Valkyries: strong, bold, and fierce. Tipping off during the 2025 WNBA season, the team is headquartered in Oakland and will play home games at Chase Center in San Francisco. For Golden State Valkyries’ assets, including team logos, visit valkyries.com.