Education

In Oakland, Community Building Key to Student Success

Published

11 years ago

October 22, 2013

By Jon Leckie

A group of 20 parents gather in a small cafeteria at the Oakland Housing Authority at 12th Street and Union. They sit at six tables with vases of flowers in the middle, and each draped with a tablecloth.

They’re here for a weekly Parent Café put on by Oakland Parents Together, an organization seeking to do just that: build community among parents.

“Two fingers up!” Kwame Nitoto, program director at Oakland Parents Together says, garnering attention from the room. It’s first things first at the Parent Café, so he dismisses the tables one at time for plates of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.

“Food is tremendously important,” Nitoto says. “You’ve got to have food, and you’ve got to have good food. If you have bad food, people will leave talking about bad food and not come back.”

A warm meal is the starting point for a conversation at Oakland Parents Together. It’s all a part of a strategy to get parents engaged in each other’s lives and in the lives of their children. Groups across Oakland are working towards the same goal, but I talked to two particularly concerned with the future success of our city’s youth.

“Apathy and poverty are our biggest battles,” Nitoto says, offering $10 gift cards to families who show up to the cafes, “but parents have power and responsibility. It’s not the school’s job to educate your child. If you want the school to do everything, your child will be at a high disadvantage. You have a responsibly to be involved.”

The café is designed to empower parents to realize their voices, and each begins with parents pairing off and talking to one another, each for five minutes. They can talk about the chosen question of the day or they can talk about anything else. The important part is no interruptions, no advice, just eye contact, smiles and an open ear.

After the dyad, trained parents run a discussion at the table revolving around a preselected question. Parents offer their opinions on family dynamics, child rearing and spirituality. The point isn’t the answer, but the interaction.

In the past, Nitoto has used another strategy to engage parents and their children he called “bringing mom and dad love to the school.” In East Oakland, near the Fruitvale BART station, Urban Promise Academy is putting that into practice. As a result, it’s seen measured progress in student success.

Glendy Cordero, a soft-spoken woman who acts more like an aunt than an administrator, runs programs for parents out of the middle school’s Family Resource Center.

“One of the challenges is that parents think when their kids are middle school age, they are old enough to make their own decisions,” she said. “To overcome that we have classes for the families, and make sure the parents hear from kids that have parents involved how good they feel and how safe they feel when parents are around.”

When Cordero first arrived at Urban Promise Academy nine years ago, there was no family resource center, just her own desire to be involved in the education of her two daughters. Six years into volunteering, the school offered Cordero a full-time job reaching out to other parents.

Now parents walk the halls daily, getting to know the students and helping in the school’s garden. These parents are part of what Cordero calls “Family Champions,” and they run everything from supervision in the gym an hour before school to a salad bar that feeds and educates students and parents about healthy habits.

“When I think about all the things that happen in this room, I’m amazed,” Assistant Principle Dennis Guikema said. “It’s a community hub, more than just a place for academic support. Our families have access to student progress reports and the Alameda County food bank. It’s a lifeline for families, and often the first stop for help with immigration, counseling and mental health.”

For Cordero, it’s the parents who make all the difference. “Family is really the center of this school,” she said. “We couldn’t do this work without the families that are engaged. They love this school as much as we do.”

Those words ring true to Nitoto’s message, that building a strong community around your school, and in your neighborhood, is what will ultimately show positive results in a child’s life.

“You’re going to need parents that understand other parents can’t do it alone,” Nitoto said, “and if it’s one of your friends you see everyday knocking on your door, it’s going to be more successful.”

Cross posted with Oakland Local.

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Five Years After COVID-19 Began, a Struggling Child Care Workforce Faces New Threats

Five years ago, as COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures began, most early educators continued to work in person, risking their own health and that of their families. “Early educators were called essential, but they weren’t provided with the personal protective equipment they needed to stay safe,” said CSCCE Executive Director Lea Austin. “There were no special shopping hours or ways for them to access safety materials in those early and scary months of the pandemic, leaving them to compete with other shoppers. One state even advised them to wear trash bags if they couldn’t find PPE.”

Published

1 week ago

March 24, 2025

Oakland Post

UC Berkeley photo.

UC Berkeley News

In the first eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic alone, 166,000 childcare jobs were lost across the nation. Significant recovery didn’t begin until the advent of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Child Care Stabilization funds in April 2021.

Today, child care employment is back to slightly above pre-pandemic levels, but job growth has remained sluggish at 1.4% since ARPA funding allocations ended in October 2023, according to analysis by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley. In the last six months, childcare employment has hovered around 1.1 million.

Yet more than two million American parents report job changes due to problems accessing child care. Why does the childcare sector continue to face a workforce crisis that has predated the pandemic? Inadequate compensation drives high turnover rates and workforce shortages that predate the pandemic. Early childhood educators are skilled professionals; many have more than 15 years of experience and a college degree, but their compensation does not reflect their expertise. The national median hourly wage is $13.07, and only a small proportion of early educators receive benefits.

And now a new round of challenges is about to hit childcare. The low wages paid in early care and education result in 43% of early educator families depending on at least one public support program, such as Medicaid or food stamps, both of which are threatened by potential federal funding cuts. Job numbers will likely fall as many early childhood educators need to find jobs with healthcare benefits or better pay.

In addition, one in five child care workers are immigrants, and executive orders driving deportation and ICE raids will further devastate the entire early care and education system. These stresses are part of the historical lack of respect the workforce faces, despite all they contribute to children, families, and the economy.

The economic impact was equally dire. Even as many providers tried to remain open to ensure their financial security, the combination of higher costs to meet safety protocols and lower revenue from fewer children enrolled led to job losses, increased debt, and program closures.

Eventually, the federal government responded with historic short-term investments through ARPA, which stabilized childcare programs. These funds provided money to increase pay or provide financial relief to early educators to improve their income and well-being. The childcare sector began to slowly recover. Larger job gains were made in 2022 and 2023, and as of November 2023, national job numbers had slightly surpassed pre-pandemic levels, though state and metro areas continued to fluctuate.

Many states have continued to support the workforce after ARPA funding expired in late 2024. In Maine, a salary supplement initiative has provided monthly stipends of $240-$540 to educators working in licensed home- or center-based care, based on education and experience, making it one of the nation’s leaders in its support of early educators. Early educators say the program has enabled them to raise wages, which has improved staff retention. Yet now, Governor Janet Mills is considering cutting the stipend program in half.

“History shows that once an emergency is perceived to have passed, public funding that supports the early care and education workforce is pulled,” says Austin. “You can’t build a stable childcare workforce and system without consistent public investment and respect for all that early educators contribute.”

The Center for the Study of Childcare Employment is the source of this story.

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Activism

District Delegates to State Democratic Party Central Committee Meeting Celebrate Election Victory

Delegates and elected officials were excited for the future of the Democratic Party and making its focus on 1) creating more affordable housing, 2) supporting education, 3) helping working families, and 4) protecting the environment and addressing climate change, with a focus on practical and realistic policy efforts that could have a meaningful impact.

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Front row: Megan Imperial, Genice Jacobs, Bobbi Lopez, Courtney Welch, Janani Ramachandran, Hercules Councilmember Dilli Bhattarai, Sarah Bell, Laura Babitt, Ashlee Jemmott, and Shawn Danino. Rear row: Ben Gould, Sam Davis, Victor Flores, Zac Bowling, Nate Hanson, Teddy Gray King, Cathy Adams, Neil Tsutsui, Sam Gould, Lauren Wilson, and Nick Pilch. Courtesy photo.

By Ben Gould
Special to The Post

Winners of the February 2025 Assembly District Election Meetings (ADEM) for Assembly Districts 14 and 18 met on Sunday, March 16 to discuss priorities for the California Democratic Party convention in Anaheim coming up in May.

The winners for Assembly District 18 are Genice Jacobs, Bobbi Lopez, Shawn Danino, Ben Gould, Zac Bowling, Nate Hanson, Cathy Adams, Sam Gould, Lauren Wilson, Ashlee Jemmott, and former Oakland School Board Director Sam Davis.

The winners for Assembly District 14 are: Sarah Bell, Neil Tsutsui, Hercules Councilmember Dilli Bhattarai, former Berkeley School Board Director Laura Babitt, former Piedmont Mayor Teddy Gray King, and former Albany Mayor Nick Pilch.

They were joined by Oakland Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, Emeryville Councilmember Courtney Welch, and BART Director Victor Flores to help celebrate their victory.

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Golden State Warriors Program Is Inspiring Next Generation of Female Engineers

Breaking down barriers and biases that deter young girls from pursuing STEAM subjects is essential for creating a level playing field and ensuring equal opportunities for all. By challenging stereotypes and promoting a culture of inclusivity and diversity in STEAM fields, experts believe young girls can be empowered to pursue their interests and aspirations without limitations confidently. Encouraging mentorship, providing access to resources, and celebrating girls’ achievements in STEAM are all crucial steps in creating a supportive environment that fosters success.

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Front Row: UC Berkeley Steel Bridge Team Back Row: Girls, Inc. Participants. Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors.

By Y’Anad Burrell

The Golden State Warriors and e-commerce giant Rakuten are joining forces to inspire the next generation of female engineers through Building STEAM Futures, part of The City Calls campaign.

Organizers say the initiative is founded on the idea that science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) are crucial fields for innovation and progress, and empowering young girls to pursue careers in these areas is more important than ever. Studies consistently show that girls are underrepresented in STEAM fields, resulting in a gender disparity that limits potential and hinders diversity.

On Saturday, March 8, International Women’s Day, the Warriors and Rakuten hosted 20 middle school girls from Girls Inc. of Alameda County at Chase Center’s Above the Rim for a hands-on bridge-building experience. The young girls from Girls, Inc. of Alameda County had an opportunity to design, build and test their own bridge prototypes and learn the fundamentals of bridge construction from the Engineering Alliance and the UC Berkeley Steel Bridge Team.

This STEAM experience for the girls followed the first session in January, where they took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Golden Gate Bridge, learning about its design and construction from industry experts. The City Calls campaign, tipped off with the unveiling the Warriors’ new bridge-themed City Edition jerseys and court design earlier this year.