Bay Area

OPINION – Suddenly Homeschooling

Published

5 years ago

April 8, 2020

I have founded seven schools over the past 12 years with one mission in mind — to eradicate the achievement gap that Black students suffer year after year. Fortune School, a network of K-12, tuition-free, public charter schools is a regional initiative in Sacramento and San Bernardino to prepare kids for college, starting in kindergarten.

So, when on March 21, I announced to families we were closing our schools temporarily because of the COVID-19 virus, it broke my heart. When you are an educator, the school community means everything. You experience the joys and challenges of life with children and families as you educate the next generation. But, when God closes a door, he opens a window.

It never occurred to me that a deadly pandemic would drive us to lock-up our brick-and-mortar classrooms and open virtual ones in a week’s time, but that’s exactly what we’ve done.

We put hundreds of Chromebooks into the hands of eager parents and on March 25, Fortune School launched an ambitious Distance Learning Program to our families who, alongside millions of Californians, have found themselves sheltering in place and suddenly homeschooling.

Our program is built to last until the end of the school year if need be. We are using Google Classroom as our learning management system, providing students with original, teacher-made videos and assignments curated by our curriculum and instruction department based on Fortune’s existing curriculum.

Our teachers engage students face-to-face for instructional questions through Google Hangouts. It’s been cool to see students rocking their school uniforms at the kitchen table from home, while they video conference with their teachers and classmates.

Principals don their school swag and hold daily morning meetings on Facebook Live. Students and their parents friend us on Facebook to hear announcements, say the pledge of allegiance, sing the National Anthem and The Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is also our school song. Our goal is to keep our school community together during these difficult times by constantly communicating with families in fun ways. We’ve even gotten creative with technology to feature our PE and visual and performing arts teachers to provide yoga, art, music and spoken word for students.

Interestingly, principals have observed that we’ve seen certain social media savvy, millennial parents engage in our digital schools in ways they never did in person. For sure, there are some in our school community who struggle with the technology.

To address that problem, we have established tech hotlines to answer questions from parents and teachers, manned by the IT staff who were normally assigned to school buildings. We created a Distance Learning Hub, which is a family friendly website with technology training videos, announcements and a portal to virtual classrooms all in one place. Teachers have their own Distance Learning Professional Development website along with office hours two times a day from our tech and curriculum experts.

We have moved Special Education services online too, providing specialized therapies and instructional supports to students with IEPs through Google Hangouts. Counseling is available for all of our students who need social and emotional support during this time.

Kids still need structure in a homeschooling model. We’ve provided parents with a daily schedule that includes breakfast and lunch. Any parent can pick-up a FREE grab-and-go breakfast and lunch every day at a drive-thru at one of our school sites.

Small public school systems like Fortune don’t receive much attention in the larger narrative about what’s happening in American schools right now. But, I want you to know, we are here and we are serving our families from our homes to theirs. We are keeping a positive attitude and following the advice of inventor George Washington Carver who said, “Start where you are, with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied.”

Editor’s note: Dr. Margaret Fortune is the President/CEO of Fortune School, a network of K-12 public charter schools in Sacramento, Ca., she founded to close the African American achievement gap in her hometown. Fortune has been an education adviser to two California Governors. She is secretary-treasurer of California State National Action Network, a national civil rights organization.

Dr. Margaret Fortune

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Related Topics:Fortune School Public Charter School

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Oakland Post: Week of May 28 – June 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 28 – June 3, 2025

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5 days ago

May 30, 2025

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

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1 week ago

May 25, 2025

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Bay Area

Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.