Bay Area

School District Defends, Community Condemns Arrests of Parents and Teachers at School Board Meeting

Published

6 years ago

October 31, 2019

The Board of Education and administration of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) are facing a barrage of public criticism after the arrest and injury of six parents and teachers who were protesting at the last school board meeting against the district’s unwillingness to reconsider plans to close or “consolidate” a large number of schools in the coming years.

School officials, speaking at a press conference the day after the arrests, defended the police action as necessary to protect board meetings from disruption to and reaffirmed their commitment to close schools in order to “right size” the district.

Parents and teachers have demonstrated at the previous two school board meetings, forcing the board to move its meetings to a private room without public access. The protests were against school closures that are taking place and the wave of closings that are planned in the next three years. Since 2003, the district has closed 18 schools, 14 of which have become charters. The district has already set up an official school committee to authorize the sale and lease of closed school properties.

Amid huge parent and student protests and a successful school boycott, Roots Academy was closed in early 2019. The board also recently voted to shut down the Kaiser Elementary School campus and Oakland SOL at the end of the 2019 school year. Members of the “Oakland Not for Sale” coalition were ready to commit civil disobedience.

When people arrived at the Oct. 23 board meeting, they saw the board on stage, 29 OUSD police and school security officers stretched in a line in front of the stage and a line of metal police barricades and a line of barricades in front of them. When some parents and teachers attempted to pass through the barricades, they were knocked to the ground and arrested. Some were injured. Five of the arrestees were taken to the OUSD police station at Cole Elementary in West Oakland, cited and released. The sixth arrestee, Kaiser Elementary parent Saru Jayaraman, was taken to a hospital for treatment, cited and released.

Jayaraman, standing on crutches and wearing a leg brace, spoke at a vigil of about 150 teachers and families at the district headquarters in downtown Oakland. There, they opposed school closures and the violent arrests of members of the school community.

“We have gone to three or four school board meetings…with musical instruments, with guitars, with song sheets … and our demands. Those are the weapons we have carried,” she said. And when we walked in on Wednesday with our guitar and our signs and our banners, we were faced with cops who had batons and guns metal barricades — at a public school board meeting with children present. So, I ask you — who is dangerous? The people with signs (who sang) “We shall overcome” or the police who have batons and guns and the school board that directed them to attack us?”

Speaking at the OUSD press conference, District spokesman John Sasaki said, “Going into (Wednesday) night’s meeting, we wanted to be prepared to prevent disruption from happening once again. In an abundance of caution, we decided to protect the Board of Education and staff and to protect the students. We set up a barricade and we had security.”

“Some people began to rush the barrier,” said Sasaki. “For those people on the dais, it wasn’t clear what the goal (of the protesters) was, but it was a highly charged moment. At that point we moved the meeting upstairs and continued. “

OUSD Police Chief Jeff Godown said, “They were there with full intention to commit the crime. You cannot commit the crime. You cannot shut down the meeting.”

Condemning the arrests, California Teachers Association President E. Toby Boyd issued a statement:

“CTA condemns the heinous acts of violence perpetuated Oct. 23 by OUSD police officers against Oakland parents, student and educators who were peacefully protesting proposed school closures. There is no room for these actions in our schools or anywhere in society. We hold responsible the OUSD and supt. Kyla Johnson-Trammell for creating the atmosphere that led to police officers wildly swinging batons at unarmed teachers, parents and student, causing physical injury and emotional distress.”

A statement by Justice 4 Oakland Students (J4OS), a coalition of students, families and teachers, said:

“Using barricades and police violence to silence community voices and harming young people is unacceptable…This is a travesty that the OUSD Board perpetuates and models this use of excessive policing.

“(J4OS) stands against … the OUSD police presence and force ordered by the OUSD Board of Education against students, parents, teachers, and community members who were there to participate in the democratic process, including non-violent protest and disruption. It is our right to speak out and express dissenting opinions and demands in a public forum without the fear of police repression. We demand that the Superintendent and School Board apologize for the barricade created at a pub We demand that you commit to no use of OUSD or OPD Police or barricades at Board Meetings.”

Ken Epstein

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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

Published

5 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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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.

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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

2 weeks 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.