Community

Does OUSD Want Input or Just a Rubber Stamp on School Headquarters Development?

Published

11 years ago

February 27, 2015

The Oakland Unified School District has put its community engagement process on “reset” after plans to rebuild its central office complex blew up in its face amid community suspicions that the district was arranging to sell Dewey Academy out from under its students and teachers, and hand over the school district headquarters property on Second Avenue to private developers.

The Educational Leadership Complex Committee, which started meeting in December with about a dozen members, was supposed to embody the new, improved, “reset” community engagement process. But now some of the community members are questioning whether the committee is being set up to rubber stamp whatever the administration puts in front of it.

“It doesn’t feel like an authentic process. It’s like what (former facilities manager) Tim White said in the Oakland Post, like this is being rammed down the community’s throat,” said Bruce Kariya, a community representative on the committee and a former school board member for District 2 from 1999-2003.

“It’s a lot about being rushed and just being asked to make decisions without any information that we really need,” said Kariya. “It’s such an amorphous process, very ill defined, ill resourced. There’s a lot of frustration over that.”

The committee is supposed to have its final meeting on March 22 and produce a report for a school board meeting in April. Among committee members are Mia Settles, OUSD Chief Operations Officer; Tim White, the Deputy Chief of Facilities who was recently forced to resign; and Vernon Hal, senior business manager. Also attending meetings is Isaac Kos-Read, newly hired Chief of Communications and Public Affairs.

Bruce Kariya

Naomi Schiff

Frustrated by the lack of information, community members submitted questions by email on Feb. 21 to district staff.

“May we have an advance agenda for topics of discussion?” They requested.

“May we now have the information on results from the surveys of the various sectors of the community?

“Please supply written information on approximate amounts of funding and sources available or considered. It is not possible to entirely divorce the planning from the funding questions.

“May we know what other sites are contemplated as possibilities for an administration complex? What studies are available on other suitable OUSD-owned, non-school facilities, such as, just for one example, the High Street site?

“Can you tell us what the state-recommended land allocation would be for a continuation high school Dewey’s size? What are the standards for recreational facilities for a school of Dewey’s size?

“Please provide information about what mechanism would be employed to request an extension, since the project plan and committee work plan will obviously not be sufficient nor suitably worked out in time for the deadline? What are the external time constraints that are impacting our committee’s work.”

The school district headquarters flooded in January 2013, causing the entire building to be evacuated. Since then, the district central offices have been temporarily located at closed school sites around the city and in an office building in downtown Oakland at Broadway and 11^th Street.

In addition, the city has sold land to a company to build a condominium tower next to Dewey Academy, which is adjacent to the old headquarters. Dewey students and supporters held a series of protests last year to pressure the district to halt a proposal to sell the property to the company to help pay for the new headquarters project.

“With the current process in place, we can’t know what the community wants,” said Kariya, adding that the committee is only sure that the community does not want the site to be used for housing.

“There seems to be a desire on the part of the school district to have some sort of private development,” Kariya said, though a number of their goals for the 3-acre site seem incompatible. The want to build 75,000 square feet of office space and parking for 500. But the district currently has over 900 central office employees and 275,000 square feet of central office space.

“You have to accept it all on blind faith,” he said.

When committee members express their frustrations, Kariya said, public affairs chief Kos-Read is now putting the blame on (former facilities manager) Tim White.

Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance is also questioning why committee members are getting no information on which to make a decision.

She said that she went on a tour last year of the closed Paul Robeson Administration building. “It is dry. You’d think it was moldy and full of water. There was certainly some kind of flooding, but it’s not falling down. There is no visible cracking,” she said.

“It may be that it would be very expensive to use it (again), it is not a non-reusable building.”

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

20 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

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2 days ago

March 1, 2026

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

4 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke